ethiopia_planning_dec2014

=Africa RISING Ethiopia Review and Planning meeting= toc
 * 2-3 December 2014**
 * ILRI Addis Info Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia**

Objectives

 * Review project progress and results and share lessons learned.
 * Develop approaches and candidates for scaling with site level partners.

Agenda

 * Tuesday 2 December**
 * 8.30 Registration
 * 9.00 Welcome and introduction (objectives, agenda, participants) + icebreaker - (SM and TG)
 * 9:20 the wider context:Feed the Future (AS)
 * 9.30 Past year highlights. How we have implemented the work plans developed at last year's planning meeting. Plenary presentation (KM / PT)
 * 10.30 Break
 * 11.00 Review progress with and insights from the research that has been implemented. Bus stops (total = 9, 7 research themes and two cross cutting issues; TG).
 * 12.00 Emerging research issues. Open Space (TG).
 * 13.00 Lunch break
 * 14.00 Reflection of the overall implementation of the project over the last year. SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and threats; TG)
 * 15.00 Reflection on issues arising at sites (accomplishments, challenges, successes, mapping key issues, actors, partners, scaling candidates etc). Group work / report back (by site).
 * 17.15 Close
 * 17.30 Reception


 * Wednesday 3 December**
 * 8.45 Previous day recap. (TG)
 * 9.00 General reflections on scaling approaches. //Talk show// (Panel - Tilahun Amede ICRISAT, Steffen Schulz CIP, Selamyihun Kidane ATA, Dirk Hoekstra ILRI, Interviewer - Peter Thorne ILRI).
 * 9.45 Identification / formulation of potential scaling approaches. //Group work// (Groups each focus on one of seven higher level outcomes; productivity, market access and income, nutrition and health, gender inclusivity, environmental sustainability, a doptability; TG).
 * 12:00 Report back on scaling approaches. //Plenary presentations// (group rapporteurs)
 * 13.00 //Lunch break//
 * 14.00 Clustering scaling approaches into more generic strategies for testing (identify key elements for different strategies). //Plenary presentation and discussion// (TG)
 * 15.00 Identify potential components of a scaling plan (identification of candidate technologies for scaling (by theme, as per progress review on day 1; specify time of implementation, need a long list (c. 8) for implementation in early 2015). //Group work// (TG).
 * 16.30 Report back on proposals for inclusion in scaling plans. // Plenary presentations // (group rapporteurs)
 * 17;00 close

Participants


=Meeting notes=

Introductory words by Siboniso Moyo
(ILRI, DG representative in Ethiopia and program leader on Animal science for sustainable productivity)

Important to think about: reviewing what works but also what needs to be improved; sharing across the regions and thinking about our lessons that could inform other parts of the program as a whole; the partnership that brings us together on this important program; the importance to deliver on our promises and research; reviewing the M&E processes that are ongoing. Thanking the donors for this work and welcoming everyone for coming here and declaring the meeting officially open.

General review by Peter Thorne and Kindu Mekonnen
//See the presentation by Peter Thorne// Africa RISING Is part of Feed the Future which has four broad aims: the research needs to contribute to productivity, income and access to markets, capacity to use technologies generated and resilience. We will focus on scaling in this meeting. This is why we are here. We have big and strong partnerships. The planning meeting we had last year informed our work plans and individual research protocols. If we can get a similar result this year it would be great.

//See the presentation by Kindu Mekonnen// We work in Endamehoni, Basona, Sinana and Lemo. In each region we have contrasting research activities. The characterization and diagnosis involved a lot of tools.


 * Q&A**:
 * **Q (Dirk)**: We are trying to focus on the household but the extension agents talk to the household head but then the gender division appears. If staff take the habit to talk to the household (including children), it's a different picture.
 * **A**: We will imitate the LIVES example in this and it's particularly important for scaling approaches. We have to be careful not to consider the household as one unit.
 * **Q (Alan)**: Thank you for the history of Africa RISING. The quick wins seem to have disappeared. If we would do it differently, how would we do it the next time.
 * **A**: Quite a few were involved in the early phase. We were not traumatized by the quick wins. They were brought in because we need to show some early results. There was no strategy at that point. We used our first year to develop that strategy but USAID also wanted us to demonstrate those early results. But the quick wins have actively fed our diagnostic studies. We further developed the forage diagnostic tools etc. Sometimes with research we don't know what we are doing at the beginning.
 * Alan: One of the benefits of those was to establish partnerships so they were useful in starting something good and useful.
 * **Q**: What's in the variety of trials etc. Such projects should be at the forefront of cutting-edge innovation. What are we trying to do and test?
 * **A**: We've been learning about how our technology is adopted etc Farmer research groups are likely going to be a very important mechanism in peer-to-peer knowledge transfer (for scaling). You talked about separating research and action but a lot of this is identifying actions that are appropriate for our research on intensification and scaling.
 * **Comment (Girma)**: I was expecting a listing of key challenges and lessons learnt.

What happened about the research themes (bus stops)?
__**Tier 1: Feed and forage + cross cutting**__

Crop residues

 * Enset versus feed
 * Soil fertility versus crop residue
 * Feed storage is done on the already harvested
 * Soil fertility issues is remaining as a problem
 * Crop residue should keep the land property right –restrict animal free grazing
 * The whole system has to be considered when we think of crop residue
 * When the soil is depleted /extracted no more crops residue next year
 * Putting alternative feed sources can help
 * Land policy
 * In Debre Birhan : crop residue is mix of cereal and pulses
 * Then what is new with this protocol

Irrigation fodder sheep fattening

 * CBA (cost –benefit Analyisi)
 * Livestock housing – improved – feeding troughs)
 * Schemes based irrigation
 * Many be challenging due to completion over H2O

Gender

 * The percentage of female headed households presented does not help us know what percentage is good. We need to know the proportions of FHH households in each community and compare the proportions in relation to the total number.
 * We need to prioritize activities that are done by women and those done by men and target the two groups based on what they do. We need to introduce interventions that align with these activities. Some of the activities in crop and livestock production are mostly done by women. But when it comes to training, it’s the men who come. So women who carry out the activities are not trained, which affects the output.
 * When enterprises dominated by women started taking off, the men take over. This is a common problem in Ethiopia. What can we do to overcome this?
 * We tend to focus of production but nutrition is not all about the amount consumed by the variety of foods consumed. When farmers diversify crops produced, it becomes more for sale and child children are still malnourished.
 * We need to make it clear to people that if you do not involve women in decision making on what to grow and consume, then under nutrition will be an issue.
 * There is need to characterize the cropping systems and the roles that men and women do in this systems. In Enset production, planning is done by men and processing by women. But there are no processing technologies yet its labor intensive.
 * Some crops are dominated by women e.g. home gardens are controlled by women.
 * Our approach does not seem to address the entire value chain including markets and consumption. We are focusing on production. If we fail to address consumption, then we shall not address nutrition.
 * Nutrition is not easy to achieve because it entails changing people’s feeding behavior and cultures. In Ethiopia, people predominantly consume cereals and less of the vegetables. Changing this behavior is not easy.

Value chains

 * Focused on role of Agribussinesses
 * Variations in businesses and product
 * Relationship between production and diversity of businesses /products
 * Consumption cultures differ
 * Crop and livestock by products in feed
 * Individual site reports and briefs
 * Sharing knowledge between the sites- cross site learning
 * More protocols looking at integration: livestock plus crops ets. study provides some ideas about demand –need to be followed up
 * Demand estimation is required
 * Going forward –value chine as a scaling strategy
 * See issues –still a problem - Input supply system

Seeds

 * 2013 PVC activities were started
 * Current seed production system in AR
 * Treat this protocol differently –research Versus business - PPB-besides PVS
 * storage for seed (potatoes ,FB, wheat barley )
 * Disease is a majority problem
 * To be taken further (what)
 * Wheat (rust ,takede septoria) Faba beans (FB gal)


 * __Tier 2: High value crops + systems + knowledge management__**

Multi-purpose trees

 * 1) walnut ,olive
 * 2) Integration in pub a. With livestock dung and compost b. Feed source from the trees ,fruits c. Who does the work(planning ,management ,marketing ) –women ,children d. Nutrition aspect should be considered
 * 3) Multi –purpose should be included e.g scaling and other tree species on farm
 * 4) What motivates theft of fruit seedlings
 * 5) How fast trees give fruits
 * 6) Integration of high value crops in fruit farms e.g Apple trees integrate –vegetables and nitrogen fixing
 * 7) Water issue should be considered in fruit farms –e.g apple is water demanding
 * 8) Wind breaking is important for Apple trees
 * 9) Agriculture integration with multi purpose trees
 * 10) Germ plasm- strengthen –private sector, community

Cropping systems for nutrition

 * High value open grazing
 * Long term scenarios
 * Consider youth
 * Nutrition vs. institutions

Tree lucerne

 * It is important to have site specific cutting frequency, cutting height, spacing and biomass/plant
 * Does this plan need irrigation access
 * Tree lucerne –demand by insects, free grazing, rust
 * Farmers are growing it around ponds, farm bunds, some broader farms, farm lands
 * The main challenge can be land limitation, how do some up with forage introduction in high land –we should identify farm typology
 * Beside introduction of tree lucerne we should also work on unitization of the already introduced ones – assessment of feed shopper introduction

Innovation platforms
Brief presentation of the AR Innovation Platforms purpose, structure and function and also M&E by Zelalem and Elias. Questions from participants:
 * How to avoid farmers who are reach to participate in research protocols and form FRGs?
 * How did you handle the farmer selection? Was it participatory? How did you handle those famers who were interested in one protocol but couldn’t get the chance?
 * The IP members would be overwhelmed if they have to accomplish all the IP activities? How many IP meetings and field days are planned?
 * How are the farmers represented in the kebele and woreda IPs? The linkage mechanism that exists to link each IPs?

Enset research

 * 1) Seed mulitiplication
 * 2) Awareness creation (e.g management )
 * 3) System interpretation (livestock versus enset )
 * 4) PVS (demonstration, FTC)
 * 5) Understanding indigenous knowledge (existing farming system)
 * 6) Capacity building (Das farmers )


 * __Tier 3: Land and water + field crops selection__**

Landscape management

 * 1) FS
 * 2) FGD
 * 3) Model
 * 4) PRCM
 * 5) NA Issues to be included
 * 6) Livestock integration a. Open frazing –by laws b. Destocking ?
 * 7) We will ‘re-organiz’the farms too?
 * 8) Socio –economic survey- gender segregated
 * 9) Partners needed to implement interventions right
 * 10) Farm map + tenure mapping
 * 11) AEWHO has access to communal lands

Yield gaps
Participatory varietal selection
 * what if standard local check out yield
 * choices to cope with disease out break
 * #of varieties under PVS are small
 * farmers feedback + breeders
 * # of farmers /Kebele/PVS

Step-wise intensification

 * Labor allocation at different stages of intensification
 * Crop diversification (Enset)
 * Mother baby trials
 * Raw planting
 * Bring in good fodder to be intercropped
 * Commercialization of fodder

Open space - what research issues are we overlooking

 * Farming systems modeling / Redesigning farming / cropping system scaling...
 * Energy efficiency
 * Appropriate mechanization
 * Small-scale processing technologies...
 * Post-harvest issues

Farming systems modeling
Gap: human decision, decision-making, interactions. Tools(?) for optimizing Mixed crop-livestock-tree Farming systems: Maybe cherry-picking a tool/process/model, More insight required, expertise in-house, data requirements (challenging)? Expectations (too high): DS fo intensification at farm level ==> system integration What works? Where? For whom? (combination of technologies)

Energy efficiency
We looked at the role of women: women are walking long distance. Crop residues are used for fuel. And we have to be climate-smart. What approaches? Alternative energy sources, improving woodlots (e.g. protocol on landscape management), improved stove, solar energy. We have to quantify tree-crop-livestock integration to measure GHG emissions. Use brickets with different sources. Efficient charcoal production; sustainable and participatory forest management... __Comment__: for all integration approaches, this country is suffering from very limited biomass. We should take seriously the limits of biomass.

Small scale processing
It happens at farm level or at the immediate higher scale, for better income, minimizing post-harvest losses, nutrition, reduced labour and increased shelf life. Of all commodities in AR, which options could be applicable for this? Potatoes, dairy (cooling tech, churning butter), legumes (storage and transformation)... With both cereals and legumes the milling process absorbs a lot of ??? We could look at that as sources for feeds. Boiling, roasting kolo, enset processing, fruit juices, ripening houses for bananas, drying / processing of tomatoes, fodder chopping... Mix all this into baby food. __Comments__: Increasing shelf life of potatoes would be good.

Appropriate mechanization
Around tillage and CA and more and more promotion of raw planting... Increasing labour and labour intensive work. Some attempts to do animal-drawn seeding and fertilizing. Small tractors are being demonstrated by smallholder farmers. We discussed options with cooperatives but there are issues with demand/timeliness (seasonal demands). There is potential for soil conservation and also for mechanized threshing (minimal tillage, increased labour efficiency and still higher yields and better soil conservation)... With threshing there's potential in harvesting the traditional way and/or threshing with a mechanized thresher. __Comment__ : but we need to think about how these technologies have been introduced and about dedicated input supplier (sometimes the scale is too small for these services). We have to show that we can do other things than just ploughing (for which the horsepower is limited).

Post-harvest issues
We suggest having a good quantification (how much is in the pre- and post-harvest losses). Students for post-harvest of potatoes (details - Jogo). For drying, storage, processing, we also need to quantify this. There were some examples for the post-harvest losses during threshing (15% quality loss) - quality and quantity loss. Mechanical threshing during harvesting of potato tubers. We can review what has been done by Melkasa and Bahir Dar, and other mechanization offices. Potential partners that can work on this: Mekelle University, ARARI (mechanization), Melkasa research center (EIAR) and mechanization centers in the regions.

Post-harvest interventions to increase income of farmers. Small scale processing. Post-harvest interventions should be based on cropping systems. Enset was mentioned as a special crop for post-harvest processing too. Emphasis on enset should be on increasing the nutritional value (unique coop that requires special emphasis). Trade-offs between processing and nutritional value.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
- Demand –driven approach - IPS - Communication - Value of partnerships - Value of participatory approach - Multi-disciplinary - Site office coordination - Supportive donor - Existing community based seed system ripe for scaling - Gender - Diversity of thematic areas - Broad and accommodative - Lots of training on the job - Training and consultation meeting (capacity building) - Focus on strengthening - Cap development not enough - No long term capacity building for partners - Limited capacity building (students, stakeholder) - Lack of follow up following training “coaching, mentoring. - Details of Research - Overloading activities - Lack of coordinated planning - Over stretched and pressure on site coordinators - Too many rarely focused - Protocols lack details methodology (for site level workers) - Lack of integration of protocols - Small coverage - No clear framework for farmers’ compensation - Not enough woman interviews during survey - Sample size are not sufficient enough to represent the whole highlands - Financial budget management - Profile at regional and national levels rather low - Not enough expertise in the value chain - Too wide, a range of expectations - Not enough women oriented activities - Irrelevance of protocols for publications - Livestock work too narrowly focused on feed - Slow motion - Limitation in integrated planning - Collaboration and coordinator - Partners commitment - Resources –high in demand
 * Strengths**
 * Focus on specific agro –ecology (pilot testing )
 * Extensive diagnostic study to address needs
 * Good guide and clear protocols
 * Practical intervention on the ground
 * Functional innovation platforms
 * Embedding of IPs in the research activities
 * Experience sharing
 * Effective communication tools e.g blogs ,yammer
 * Many good + supportive partnerships
 * Partnership establishment
 * Partnership strong on the ground
 * Wide range of partners expertise
 * Integration of major stakeholder partnership
 * Participatory
 * Wide range of expectation from farmers
 * Community participation at all needs of research
 * Voluntary participation of farmers
 * Research ideas came from farmers –they were interested
 * Deals with multi system components : integrative
 * Multi-disciplinary approach
 * System approach
 * Office well organized ,main office, site coordinators, assistant site coordinators
 * Well-equipped e.g vehicles
 * Site coordinators on the ground
 * Operation structure looks good
 * Financial and human contributions
 * Gender responsive
 * Gender sensitive
 * Weaknesses**
 * Financial management not so clear
 * Non decentralized budget management
 * Poor coordination of collaborating centers
 * Integration at the grass toot level is missing
 * Less integration of projects/interventions
 * Redundancy of ideas during different diagnostic survey
 * Lack of partners commitment
 * Partners expectation is high
 * Limited resources
 * Competition for scarce resources

(Overarching themes proposed by one of the groups) Research approach: protocols, markets - Africa RISING institutional structure - research-extension linkages - partnership management. Opportunity and threat: crop diseases
 * Opportunities**
 * May create opportunities for bigger initiatives
 * Market linkages: commercialization, small-scale processing
 * Government support
 * Supportive government policies
 * Identify new research areas
 * Research //in// development
 * Demand for expansion - scaling out
 * Change to experiment with scaling processes
 * Interdisciplinarity
 * Heighten interest of donors in agriculture (e.g. USAID)
 * Intensifications are in line with government initiative (policy support)
 * Donor support: funds available, buy-in
 * Broad partnership base
 * Willingness of public institutions to collaborate
 * Length of the project period (project duration)
 * Increased capacity for bigger challenges
 * Cross-learning among partners (resource sharing among partners)
 * Impact/change livelihood of farmers
 * Partnering to avoid reinventing the wheel
 * Address communication needs
 * Strong agricultural research infrastructure to build on
 * Existence of IPs (members)
 * Links with FtF, USAID, AGP, 'Buy-in' for scaling
 * Sharing of partner expertise
 * Diverse stakeholders involved
 * Willingness of stakeholders to work with Africa RISING
 * Multistakeholder involvement enables scaling
 * Partner availability and commitment
 * Farmers interest: Strong farmer interest / farmers interest toward technologies / farmers' enthusiasm and commitment
 * Suitable agroecology


 * Threats**
 * Short life span / time span of the project (too short)
 * Meeting expectations
 * IP structure too complex to work
 * Staff turnover
 * Difficulty of publishing action research in international journals
 * Crop diseases and pests which are difficult to control
 * Unavailability of technology - specifically seeds, tubers, seedlings
 * Improved seeds not always accessible
 * Inaccessibility of some technologies
 * Funding for scaling up/ out
 * shorter term financial support - risk
 * Limited scale, failure to take it to scale
 * Weak market pull in some sites
 * Sufficiently embedded in extension system? Sustainability
 * Coordination of participating CG centres (turnover and representation of Africa RISING)
 * Existing free-grazing systems threatens crop interventions
 * Climate change / climate variability
 * Dependency syndrom - farmers
 * Farmer fatigue
 * Other competing projects
 * Exposed to emergent diseases
 * Less linkage at regional and national level
 * Managing large partners
 * Partners overload their own activities
 * Lots of energy expended in X-CGIAR relations
 * Need for multi-center acknowledgement
 * Mind set

Endamehoni
//See the presentation// Demonstration of faba beans, potatoes and wheat. Based on those results we worked on seed multiplication of potatoes, wheat and faba beans. Many activities such as PVT (5 types of crops), seed multiplication, trial on faba beans / potatoes and wheat. We're trying to add forage and tree lucerne, irrigated fodder. We had a yield gap protocol by ICRISAT-CIAT including on socio-economic factors. We started crop residue management recently. At site level we've constructed ?? We are doing many activities on data collection, gender-related information. We did field days and did some evaluation on all protocols. All kebele and woreda level IP meetings happened and we collected data for each protocol. Now trying to collect data on barley and potato. Many data collected by IFPRI, on crop residue management... survey activities etc.

We had many challenges: Stakeholder participation (AR doesn't have full time staff at site level)... Stakeholders are busy. There are too many protocols for me to manage - especially for crops e.g. faba beans. Low commitment of stakeholders. Some partners are actively participating but others not. Managing and integrating different partners to come together etc. is very difficult. This is a challenge. There is a problem of open grazing. Double-cropping might be a better solution. Free grazing is a challenge for fruit protocols. Market access for some products (e.g. potatoes) is a problem. There's high demand for potato seeds though. Integration of women/men in households was an issue. Farmers have small sized land and they are complaining about providing their land. Farmers and stakeholders' expectations are difficult to manage. Irrigated land is limited...

Partnerships and scaling up opportunities? Establishment of seedling. Wheat, potato, faba bean... 3 farmers / kebele this year. At zonal, woreda level, field visits and other activities will help us to further scale up/transfer knowledge. Undertaking field days. Many farmers are interested in working with us and that can be considered as an opportunity. Existence of IPs will help us scale up our technology.


 * **Q**: Land scarcity and access to irrigation? What did you mean? You couldn't find farmers to share some land for irrigated crops?
 * **A**: Irrigated land is reserved for cash crop production, not for other crops. Some of the high level hypotheses are about sequencing of interventions and we may need to work on putting an enabling environment in place first. We create niches.

Basona
Major accomplishments: diagnostics, 10 protocols implemented and 160 farmers have participated in these. Evaluations have been conducted on various crops (PVS), IPs have been set up; data collected.

Challenges: Faba bean disease, wheat rust at late ripening stage; free grazing challenge; Research sites were dispersed and difficult for regular monitoring. Budget management unclear e.g. site coordinators have to cover full costs? What do site coordinators do for each protocol? Options: Training, using ???, site selection to be done in clusters or properly managed but without ignoring distant village.

Partnership opportunities and partnerships: Crop varieties identified. We need to scale out barley etc. Scale up chick pea and fodder beet, forage mixture; proper in-feeding.
 * The concern re: faba bean disease - it seems we don't have short term solutions. In one of our sites we try to introduce early maturing chick pea varieties with high yield (3 tons) and that could be an option to replace their faba bean concern. Good to hear that there are alternatives.

Sinana
Achievements: Very strong partnerships; diversified technologies; forest multi-purpose trees. This year we identified actors, mapped value chain problems viz different actors. Adoption of technology successful as farmers want to get involved in activities. Participatory research methodology reached more farmers (193). We did demonstration activities and our participatory research. Planned activities were implemented. Short term training organized for actors involved. We learned from each other and it encourages us for further work.

Challenges: Mono-cropping is prevalent. Farmers don't want to be involved in labour-intensive activities. They want new e.g. wheat varieties so we have to convince them of introducing diversified crops etc. Prevalence of pests (wheat rust). Activities overload the site coordinators. No protocol implemented. Absence of replication for PVS.

Key issues: Protection of legumes with cereals is still a key issue; building cropping strategies to address marketing issues. Market information delivery.

Partnership and scaling opportunities:
 * **Q**: rainfall is bimodal. Do you have dual cropping there?
 * **A**: We are planning to implement this protocol after harvesting potatoes.
 * **Q**: Isn't it our role to convince farmers of new concepts e.g. manage their livestock etc. so that parts of the landscape can be used?
 * **A**: It is part of our work and if technologies are adopted in that area, we can convince the farmers about the value.
 * That's why you need to have woreda agents involved so that by-laws, policies etc. enforce decisions etc.
 * It sounds like a chicken and egg situation because you need to show them potential results. Perhaps you can fence the trials...

Lemo
'Seleme' is the name of our IP, it means more or less 'let's stand together for development'. Achievements: 220 farmers in various activities. Collecting data, various surveys, various field days to evaluate the performance of research activities. We diversified activities; high crop demand from farmers and they want to be involved in e.g. field research activities. Responsibility of each institute is mentioned.

Challenges: Workload of experts and researchers working with us - they have their own regular program and are engaged in AR activities also. Responsibility of partners is not clearly mentioned in the project proposals. Protocol on ?? is not clear. Cash flow, expectations etc. from farmers, government staff etc. are very high and we have limited resources (in some cases).

Partnership and scaling opportunities: We are lucky as almost all institutions are actively participating in our activities. 2 research centres. Farmers are eager to participate in research activities. High demand for high value perennial crops like avocados. Agroecology is diverse (tropical and highland fruits). Scaling up is key. Farmers want us to scale up activities in their farm. Many best practices to scale out: potato storage...

**__Day 2__**
 * Wednesday 3 December**

**Previous day recap- general reflection from the participants**

 * the meeting was good
 * There was an open discussion and good interaction
 * The bus stop facilitation approach was good as it gave the chance for everyone to have a say
 * A lot of experience sharing and good interaction which help us to work on the weakness as well as build on the strength
 * A good facilitation and good interaction which helped us to know who is doing what ,
 * The presentation that Kindu did was very explanatory with the picture showing what has been done on the ground
 * General reflections on scaling approach**es. //Talk show// (Panel - Tilahun Amede ICRISAT, Steffen Schulz CIP, Adamu (ARARI) ATA, Dirk Hoekstra ILRI, Interviewer - Alan Duncan ILRI).

> Tilahun- scaling is reaching more – either through horizontally from one farmers to the next farmers or reaching up when you use evidence to convince the national or regional levels > Adamu; it means just to reach out more areas and more people. In the part research center does research but it was put on the shelf. However in the last 3-5 years we started scaling up, tried to reach more farmers, disseminated our technologist
 * Q ** :Could you please introduce your self and for how long have you worked with Africa RISING and in which areas
 * Steffen- working with CIP –involved in Africa RISING since the last 2 years. CIP involved in a variety of activities including participatory evaluation, community assessment and developed action plan
 * Adamu- a senior researcher and works with ARARI-. I have been involved in Africa RISING since the last 1 year because Basona is one of the project areas for the project – crops include barley, wheat and potato
 * Dirk- a senior adviser for ILRI particularly on the LIVES project - I were involved in Africa RISING by attending some of the initial meetings. And now involved in the value chain research
 * Tilahun: work with ICRISAT on modeling cropping system and on cash income, and intensification using home garden. I know Africa RISING from the beginning and I was part of the early win project
 * Q**:AR is part of the ftf initiative which is 1,000,000,000 dollars and AR is 13,000,000 dollars project. How do we see scaling and what do you understand about scaling up?
 * Dirk: scaling could have several definition – the simplest could be whatever intervention we have is brought to a higher scale so that we impact many people.
 * Q**: We talked about the scaling and could you talk Reality of scaling- looking at some concert example where research brought a bigger impact
 * Dirk: in IPMS artificial insemination which was not based on big scientific reached but based on technology was taken up by many
 * Steffen: some five years ago we looked at the form of seed inspection including potato, sweet potato and cassava. The basic manual was develop buy FAO and CIP and it was scaled from one woreda to the other woreda. So we moved geographically. We did this for three years and collected feedback and feed into the national system. A the task force lead by the ministry of Agriculture took the assignment and it is agreed to be incorporated in the national legislation and we tried to influence decision makers

Productivity (TIlahun Amede)
Three groups working on inputs and materials, processes, knowledge and market.
 * Germplasm (plants, livestock)
 * Healthy soils

XXXXXXXX

We believe we can reach 100.000 people and this will be self-sustainable.
 * Strategies to scale up inputs and materials**
 * Understanding the demand
 * Demand creation + service providers
 * Technology multiplication
 * Link with major service providers + enabling environment


 * Process and knowledge**
 * Identify targets
 * Landscapes
 * Clients
 * Awareness creation
 * Linkage
 * Confidence building
 * Demonstration at scale
 * Linkage-transferring ownership of the product (IP...)
 * Capacity building
 * Display knowledge to higher level policy makers

Q&A
 * Marketing**
 * Identify market actors
 * Linkages with traders, manufacturers etc.
 * Market incentives (infrastructures; through policy makers; make sure there is a proper value chain etc.)
 * Institutionalization (market cooperatives)
 * ** Q ** : Have you quantified productivity?
 * **A**: No but we can share the tools to do that. For us production is a component of productivity. People will pick what's relevant for them and their system. Some technologies are easy to scale, others are difficult. Sustainable land management is very difficult to scale up as it's a combination of approaches and technologies, whereas scaling up sweet potato varieties can be more difficult.
 * **Q**: Why is reality sometimes different and why is it so difficult to improve productivity of low value commodity crops?
 * **A**: It depends on high level drivers that dictate what's happening in this country.

Market Group ?? (Eliud)
Which enterprise to consider for crop-livestock? What will be scaled out? Innovation platforms should take us central stage in the process of prioritizing. We need to have an understanding of the distinction between semi-commercial and commercially oriented farmers - which ones are we focusing on? Producers of fruits, vegetables, small ruminants etc. are targeting markets. But those working with wheat, potatoes, may have a substantive proportion eaten at home. The decision can be guided by the framework of the platforms. In case of new enterprises (e.g. wheat, potatoes, dairy, small ruminants etc.) we shall need some additional value chain assessments. Support and input services to support the value chain: This includes seeds, chopping, spraying, mechanization etc. which can all be run as businesses. What is the viability of these enterprises and how can they sustainably support the VC? Estimating the consumer demand: we need to estimate and project the demand associated to the scaled out enterprises. What is the market size? Which consumers will drive this? What variance in the mainstream products? Are consumers willing to pay for upcoming (scaled up) products --> we should do consumer studies/surveys. Integration of protocols. At production level, unclear which enterprises will be scaled out but we'll need that integration for market and value chains + look at other components such as nutrition and gender. We may reduce the protocols to three. If we are promoting the packages, we need to be able to allow farmers to select subsets of technology packages so that measuring the success looks at specific technologies.

Environment sustainability ?? (Kiros)
Approaches rely on leadership of the scaling process to be owned by the national systems (research and extension). Inclusiveness of gender, social Make sure that national and regional partners internalize the technologies and the process Establish strengthen learning and demo sites )(FTC, universities, schools) Enhancing sustainable market for selected technologies (e.g. climate smart). The technologies we promote have to be environment-friendly and climate-smart. We also discussed whether we are really addressing these approaches and whether others may decide that they are not connected to this.

Adoptability- click [[file:Technology Adoption.docx|here]] to read the full group feedback
Adoption: successful appolication of technology or practice by end users / farmers. We talked about intensity and sustainability Pre-conditions for successful adoption... Possible approach:
 * Problem-solving;
 * Accessibility;
 * Suitability to agroecology;
 * Profitable
 * Awareness about the application is important.
 * The technology has to be socially acceptable,
 * it has to be fit to the system
 * and it has to be affordable
 * Identification of key actors and their roles (who does what)
 * Creating linkage ???
 * Look at existing social structures and local networks in each area
 * Community-based demonstration and technology multiplication centre in each area
 * Experience sharing forums (workshops, field days, learning events etc.)
 * Establishing / strengthening knowledge centers
 * Linking existing ideas to ARDPLAN ???
 * Importance of marketability also


 * **Q**: What are you scaling out? Technologies?
 * **A**: Any technology or practice

Gender group (Annet Mulema)
Integrating gender in scaling up. We don't scale up gender as a commodity but just mainstream it. Nobody talked about gender or shared an experience on scaling up. Gender transformative issues are often forgotten. We need a clear road map to integrate it in our interventions. We have highlighted some key activities:
 * Conduct a gender analysis to understand gender roles in the communities
 * Look at this data, realize inequalities and identify activities to reduce these gaps. Who does what, when, with whom, how long does it take etc.
 * Some activities are more feminine (enset processing, dairying etc.) - we can't violate these norms.
 * Understand who has access to and control over what? (land, livestock etc.)
 * Tease out power relations at hh/community level. How are decisions made, who are the movers/shakers?
 * Look at institutions in these communities - some of them have norms
 * Look at policies and threats (e.g. climate change)
 * Look at land ownership issues - mostly land is dominated by men
 * How to overcome these barriers?
 * Community dialogues - identify powerful people that can help challenge the gender roles etc.
 * Community transfer approaches
 * Institutionalization - related to norms etc.
 * **Q**: How do we intervene with gender-related projects in communities that have their own contextual understanding about norms etc.? Do we have a package to ensure fair gender-related work/practices? How far are we willing to go e.g. write a petition to claim that women should become land owners? Do we have a blacklist of gender-insensitive technologies?
 * **A**: It's a continuum. We have gender-conforming and gender-transformative approaches. In the program we focus on transformation but some communities are difficult to change. We have to accommodate by appreciating inequalities. We accommodate where we can boost e.g. gender roles without putting them in a situation that puts them as outcasts.
 * The target can be women but the producers are men.
 * Nowadays women are coming to meetings and can express their views and women's participation is coming up. If we address gender awareness it becomes easier to consider women as equal participants to men.
 * Sometimes it's just a matter of a) trying things out (we don't have to ask men and women to do the same - but we can influence certain things e.g. trading animals is usually men's labour) or b) making more gender-sensitive technologies (zero tillage is much more women-friendly, ditto with beehive management with protective clothing etc.)

Nutrition (Mariama)
We've made a lot of progress on agriculture and now we need to shift towards nutrition. Some outcomes benefit women and children. Indicators: Household diet diversity (for women and children particularly), perhaps also stunting. Gender has to be integrated in all nutrition activities.
 * 1) Increase productivity yes but we need to focus on nutritious crop and dairy products. Livestock, fruit trees and root crops.
 * 2) We need to look at post-harvest processing and value addition: What value can be added to crops that can benefit nutrition and if we add value, how can we ensure we don't reduce nutrients.
 * 3) Capacity building and behaviour change. Nutrition education... What strategies do we have to build capacities of our partenrs and the farmers themselves.
 * 4) Environment and sustainability. If women have to walk a lot to fetch wood/water, it reduces energy so we have to think about it.

What strategies do we need to integrate in the protocols etc.?
 * Involve stakeholders (especially agriculture DA's, bureau of health who interacts with families, bureau of education and schools, and use IPs which might help with nutrition, universities, private sector).
 * Collect some baseline assessment of nutrition constraints, norms, culture, food behaviours and attitudes to understand what's happening in rural Ethiopian communities, even in place where there is a high agricultural production there is malnutrition. What are strengths, constraints, options to influence models at home?
 * Understand what is available at different sites - tailor according to each kebele
 * Mobilise the communities, create awareness and make them understand nutrition is a problem - they can identify the pathways to address malnutrition. And focus on:
 * Nutrition education
 * Building capacity (field days, cooking demos, getting IEC materials to advertise different nutritious products, encourage farmer-to-farmer education approaches via ToT in the community)
 * Look at the different protocols we have and identify those that can get to household diet diversity and scale those up.
 * **Q**: What are different strategies for different households?
 * **A**: We have to do community mapping assessment which is household-focused. You identify what the household needs and you identify the constraints. Then you can categorize and tailor interventions.
 * **Comment**: you will have to go to household (and individual) level for some interventions. // Yes, nutritional assessments are individual, based on mothers, children and household diet diversity.

Site scaling plans
(//In the last session of the day, the participants identified the technologies and/or management practices they thought would be scaled up from 2015 on, also looking at the scope [scaling up vs. out], partnerships involved, time frame etc.//).

Endamehoni
30 farmers per kebele || BoA, CIP, GRAD, TARI- Alamata ARC, AGP and union, cooperatives. Microfinance || Irrigation (Belg) and Meher season || * FRG trough one –to-five approach (existing) 30 farmers per kebele || BoA, CIP, ICARDA, CASCAPE TARI-Alamata ARC, AGP and union, cooperatives. Microfinance || Meher season || * FRG trough one –to-five approach (existing) 20 farmers per kebele. || BoA, ICARDA, Alamata ARC, AGP and union, GRAD, Maichew TVET, cooperatives. Microfinance || Irigation, and Meher season || * FRG trough one –to-five approach (existing) 20 per farmers || TARI, Almata ARC, ICARDA, BoA || Dry season || * Field visit
 * No || Scale up Technologies || Scope of the technology || Partnership whom are going to work || When || Approach ||
 * 1 || Potato (Gudene, belete, Jalene) || Within and outside kebele (additional 3 kebele district), Ofla Alage.
 * Farmer to farmer seed exchange
 * Establishing and strengthening seed producer cooperative.
 * Field day and experience sharing
 * Capacity building
 * Market linkage for products
 * Staggered planting, farmers to produce in d/t time for marketing. ||
 * 2 || Wheat, M4 and Hidase || Within and outside kebele (additional 3 kebele district), Ofla Alage.
 * Farmer to farmer seed exchange
 * Establishing and strengthening seed producer cooperative.
 * Field day and experience sharing
 * Capacity building
 * market linkage ||
 * 3 || Improved Fodder (Oat and vetch) || Within AR site and (additional 5 kebele within district),
 * Farmer to farmer seed exchange
 * Encouraging seed producer farmers.
 * Field day and experience sharing
 * Capacity building
 * market linkage ||
 * 4 || Apple ( Apple variety and Management aspects) || Within the kebele additional 20 farmers per kebele || BOA, FAO, ICRAF, Alamata ARC, || Meher season || * Capacity building ( training
 * Exposure visit
 * Supporting nursery ( technical and material, ||
 * 5 || Crop residue management storage and feed trough || Within the keble
 * Capacity building technical support ||

Bason worana
Fertilizer-DAP recommend UREA raw planting || Within the two AR kebeles (46 -farmers) *2,000 kg seed= 34200 kg seed || lead - WoA extension -AR,DBRC -IPs || 2015 main season || extension Approach || 24 farmers || AR Extension IPs || 2015 main season || research extension Approach || cross -seed multiplicative || 2 kebele 50 farmers 2 kebele ,24 farmers || WoA-extension IPs || 2015 main season || extension Approach || IPs || 2015 main season || extension Approach || - shekola - Gera -Gorebela || 2 kebele - 50 farmers || WoA-extension
 * No || Scale up Technologies || Scope of the technology || Partnership whom are going to work || When || Approach ||
 * 1 || wheat -Tsehay Menze
 * 2 || Faba bean -seed multiplication || 2 kebele
 * 3 || food barley -HB1307
 * 4 || Malt Barley -Bekoje || 2 kebele - 100 farmers || WoA-extension
 * 5 || Potato

IPs || 2015 main season || extension Approach || -capacity building - germ plasm -nursery || 2 kebele - 50 new farmers || WoA-extension IPs ICRAF || 2015 main season || extension Approach || Livestock feed seed production || 2 kebeles 50 farmers
 * 6 || Apple
 * 7 || OAT Vetch

20 farmers || WoA-extension IPs AR || 2015 main season || research extension Approach ||

Lemo

 * Technologies/management practices || Scope scale out/up || Partnership /responsible || When 2015 || Approach for scaling ||
 * 1.PVS with seed multiplication
 * Wheat (digelu)
 * Potato (belete and gudene )
 * Faba bean ( ?)
 * Food Barley (HB1307) || Scope scale out

PVS and SM Within kebele increase # of village/farmers || * Wored office of agr.
 * Wachomo university
 * South seed enterprise
 * Worabe and Areka ARC
 * CGIAR || Long rain season for wheat and faba bean

Short Rain season for potato || Participatory PVS will be continued to avail new varieties for the farmers

Individual farmers will be encouraged to engaged in Seed multiplication and then the individual farmers will form seed producers group gradually they growth into formal seed producers cooperatives || Within the PA(Scale out) And Within the district (Scale up) || WCU Lemo office of Agr. Butajira nursery Areka and Worabe ARC CGIAR || In both season because it is Irrigated || Farmers who have experience on fruit development and have access to water will be selected and be trained on nursery management and the fruit grafting and be supplied with necessary grafting materials. DA and expert will be trained on the grafting and nursery and orchard management so that they render technical support for the farmers. In addition, strengthening the existing nursery that run by Wachemo university will be done in order to multiply the seedlings so that farmers will get access for the seedlings. Linkage also will be made with Butajira government nursery for experts and skilling sharing The project will support through providing WCU Lemo office of Agr. Areka and Worabe AMIO Engineering CGIAR ||  || Availing different irrigation technologies like rope and water pumps. Rope and washer pumps will be demonstrated jointly with lemo office of agriculture. The office already have this pumps. The project will provide training on the effective water utilization and conduct experience sharing visit for the farmers and experts to motivate the farmers and give learning opportunity. Water harvesting technology (geomembern) will be demonstrated jointly with Woreda office of agriculture. Lemo office of Agr. Areka and Worabe ARC Traders || Long rain season || Integrating with PVS and enset research The Mico doze will be formulated after analyzing the yield response of the expert done ||
 * 2.High value crop /Avocado/ || Scope scale out/up
 * Training- grafting, management
 * Grafting Materials
 * Seedling to create mother trees for grafting scion ||
 * 3.Irrigation for high value crops and forage development(fattening) || Scope scale out Within the PA increasing the number of the farmers || NGO
 * Training will be conducted on water harvesting techniques and on water utilization efficiency ||
 * 5.Micro doze fertilizer usage || Scope scale out || WCU
 * 6. Enset (IPDM) || Scope scale out ||  ||   ||   ||

Endamhoni

 * Seeds we produced will not be enough so we'll need to bring seeds from outside. Reaching out more farmers will
 * **Q**: How do you intend to integrate gender?
 * **A**: Some potato varieties are produced by women. We hope to involve more women in scaling up.
 * When we select the varieties we'll consider household

Basona

 * **Q**: Have you got results that you can confidently scale up?
 * **A**: No but the farmers themselves started some work 4-5 years ago and we can use that.
 * **Q**: Gender?
 * **A**: we can include women
 * But it goes beyond including women to do some analysis of who benefits most from interventions etc.
 * **Q**: I was expecting more on management practices too - this is all about varieties? Fertilizer usage, raw plantation etc.?
 * **A**: We discussed that as a package for each variety...

Sinana
10 technologies...
 * **Q**:
 * **A**:

Closing words
Very good institutional representation, very good interactions and the group results were interesting. The panel discussion was very insightful. We will discuss these results with Peter and will do our best to support the scaling up results.

Thank you facilitators Tsehay, Ewen, Simret, Peter Ballantyne etc. and the CKM group which supported this event. Donors and others need to be acknowledged for their support.

Wishing you a safe journey back and thank you again.

Organizers