Livestock stakeholder group in Ada’a, Ethiopia builds momentum

Three years ago when we set up stakeholder groups to work together on fodder/livestock issues in Ethiopia, we were worried about the sustainability question. Who would facilitate such groups after our Fodder Adoption Project and the Improving Productivity and Market Success projects phased out? With this in mind, this year we devolved facilitation of the … Continue reading →

Using participatory video with farmers in Ethiopia: Strengths and weaknesses

Earlier this year, Beth Cullen was commissioned to train farmers in participatory video (PV) – as a tool for capturing community views and perceptions on their collaboration with the Fodder Adoption Project over the last 3 years. More information on her work is here. She recently submitted a short report on the assignment, describing the … Continue reading →

Final meeting of the Fodder Adoption Project in November 2010

The Fodder Adoption Project is drawing to a close at the end of 2010. Next week (15-19 Nov, 2010) we will hold our final co-ordination meeting in Laos PDR to review research findings and draw out some lessons. Some 30 participants from around the world will participate. As well as reviewing FAP we have also … Continue reading →

Enhancing private sector input service delivery is key to livestock development in Africa

Today I was chairing a session on livestock feeds at the All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture. Feed is a key input to livestock systems particularly as systems intensify and the demand for high quality feeds increases. The session began with a plenary presentation from Michael Blummel of the International Livestock Research Institute (Download his … Continue reading →

Fourth Ethiopia fodder roundtable focused on delivery of livestock services

On 22 june 2010, ILRI hosted the fourth in a series of Ethiopia fodder roundtables that bring different actors together to share knowledge on developments in the sector. We caught up on video with some of the participants: Amanuel Assefa from Agri Service Ethiopia explains how this NGO is supporting the development of community-based dairy … Continue reading →

Delivering AI services to Ethiopia’s livestock sector

The delivery of veterinary and artificial insemination (AI) services was a major focus of the ‘Fourth Ethiopian Fodder Roundtable’ held at ILRI on 22 June 2010 (the presentation by Kebebe Ergano explains how a project on animal feed and fodder came to be involved in the delivery of these types of services). Alemaheyu Lemma of … Continue reading →

How multi-stakeholder platforms help extend fodder options for livestock in Ethiopia

Speaking at the ‘Fourth Ethiopian Fodder Roundtable’ hosted by ILRI on 22 June, Kebebe Ergano of ILRI introduced the IFAD-Funded ‘Fodder Adoption Project’ (FAP) and how it uses multi-stakeholder platforms to bring together people working with livestock and fodder in Ethiopia. The project starting point is the recognition that feed/fodder scarcity is a major constraint … Continue reading →

Fodder fact sheets for Ethiopia

In our sites in Ethiopia we find a knowledge gap when it comes to growing high quality fodder. Livestock in Ethiopia are largely kept for subsistence purposes and there is limited tradition of using high quality feeds to enhance productivity. As systems intensify, this is changing but there is a need for provision of simple … Continue reading →

Forage seed training in Alamata

Forage seed supply is often raised as a key constraint to introduction of high quality forage in the smallholder systems we work in in Ethiopia. There is limited tradition of growing planted fodder and knowledge around the area of seed production and storage is rather limited. We recently organized and ran a short course on … Continue reading →

Moving from “project mode” to sustained change in practice among local actors – some challenges

We hear a lot these days about “project-led approaches”. Projects come in and deliver various interventions but these tend to leave no lasting impression beyond the life of the project. Such approaches tend to focus on technical interventions. One response has been to think more about innovation systems: dealing with the range of players already … Continue reading →