ethiopia_partners_meeting_20141030

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 * Date:** 30 October 2014
 * Time**: 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
 * Venue**: SofOmar Meeting room, ILRI campus, Addis Ababa

+ on Skype: Peter Thorne (ILRI), Rolf Sommer (CIAT)... Wellington Jogo (CIP), Endeshaw Tadesse (AR assistant site coordinator-Sinana).
 * Attendees**: Aberra Adie (ILRI), Aklilu Mekuria (ICRAF), Ewen Le Borgne (ILRI - taking notes), Girma Kassahun (ICARDA), Jane Wamatu (ICARDA), Kindu Mekonnen (ILRI\Africa RISING), Lulseged Desta (CIAT), Sharma Kalpana (CIP-Ethiopia), Tilahun Amede (ICRISAT), Vine Muchkasira (ILRI)


 * Meeting Agenda Items**
 * 1) Progress / team updates
 * 2) Field visit observation and reflection (Tilahun Wondimu) - Presentation available here soon
 * 3) Research highlight on irrigated fodder (Aberra Adie) - Presentation available here soon
 * 4) Plans for coming months (e.g. monthly field trips)
 * 5) AOB

=**Minutes of the meeting**=

**1. Progress / Team updates**
Girma was in Bale Highlands and talked to Sinana agricultural staff and BoA. Selected 4 districts to conduct the survey but given sample size and budget, might focus on 3. One of the districts didn't provide data. Girma was in Menz district and talked to different institutions and got a go ahead from technicians and technocrats. Partners have left for a month to finalise the site selection. We need 10 markets for intervention and for control. Jane-Completed equipping the sheep barn in Sinnana so testing is ready in Dec. when crop residues are available. We didn't get choppers but otherwise everything is ready for the experiment.
 * ICARDA**:

We have been developing a survey tool to identify niches, clients and enterprises for our homegarden based protocol. Identified a consultant that will be in the field in the next 3 weeks to assess what enterprises fit where, what niches are there and what clients are about + help with seen systems. We are not keen on distributing vegetables and fruit seeds to farmers until we know they have the capacity to undertake these activities.
 * ICRISAT**:

In the state of harvesting and where potatoes are harvested we plan on double-cropping – whatever the demand is. We are also focusing on storage for faba beans. These are activities currently going on and I (Kalpana) was in Lemo to participate in the farmer to farmer field day. On the value chain component, we are currently finalizing market chain analysis. For now, myself (Wellington), CIAT and ILRI are finalizing the report from the site team and we’ll be sending the report to the site team. Finalized the livestock report in a week time. Our protocol hasn't taken off on the ground as we were looking into market analysis to feed into the protocol. That will bring together items from across the protocols since this value chain is cross-cutting.
 * CIP**:

__Lulseged__: For the 2 protocols, trials are going well. D/Birhan trials very much appreciated by farmers who confessed they had never seen this in 40 years of observing research projects. For land use management protocol, collected data from Maychew etc. and next month hopefully CIAT can present results.For water harvesting, couldn't do much as the team was late but now looking at what water conservation approaches can be considered for January onwards. Detailed land use maps from kebeles expected any time and will help with the scenario analysis - so overall more or less on track. For next season we'll be well prepared. __Rolf__: We are preparing the crop modeling course for 24-28 November. 22 participants so far and preparations are going well. 11 from Africa RISING + 10 more from ICARDA and 2 more self-paid. ICARDA folks are old colleagues of Rolf.
 * CIAT**:

__Aklilu__: Meeting in Hosanna area with Kiros and Aster around avocado. Then visited D/Birhan sites which are also ok. Doing control experiment with Holeta centre and doing some experiments in D/Birhan around commercial farms to look into propagation methods. Completed the preparation of baseline survey with IWMI and now waiting for budget holders to start baseline survey around our trial sites.
 * ICRAF**:

__Kindu__: Almost finalised biomass sampling in the faba bean/ forage intercropping on-farm research. Data on farmers’ perceptions from this experiment is also collected. Baseline information collection on tree Lucerne and faba bean/forage experiments is under way in some of the sites. Our partners are collecting the survey data. Feed assessment survey using FEAST (IWMI-ILRI) completed in Hangacha. Training on the management of tree Lucerne has been organized and provided to farmers in 3 sites. Kindu was in D/Birhan and Maychew and the ground work is very interesting, farmers are very happy.
 * ILRI**:

** The presentation by Tilahun Amede is available here: ** @http://www.slideshare.net/africa-rising/a-reth-updateamedeoct2014
The new wheat variety was appreciated even more than the fertilizer types brought in. Interested in scaling up and will pass on the information to ATA to validate the soil tests and check them up.Interested also about the residual effects of fertilizers to the next crop (faba beans), look at benefits for livestock and crops and compare with other sites. Also observed very interesting results of e.g. fungicides on faba beans done by other teams.

__Q&A__:
 * Peter: There are challenges with ATA, raised by these results. I hope we can fit those into that. No need to gloss over the challenges etc. And secondly, in terms of research report inputs, it would be great to provide these inputs for the reporting.
 * Rolf: Long term sustainability of what you presented. That is what they have in mind (e.g. nitrogen balances). In the longer run if the farmers do not add more nutrients to the soil it will deplete the available nutrient stocks and other natural resources.
 * Answer Tilahun: Yes in theory, but in practice we realise that farmers are applying about 40 kgs/Ha and if we move to 60 kgs/Ha we should be very happy. We can't imagine this is going to happen except for export crops.
 * (Rolf) Yes, but we should not suggest a non-sustainable system. For temporary solutions it can be ok to lift farmers out of poverty but not for the long run.
 * (Tilahun) Water harvesting, soil water conservation etc. are going to contribute to limit soil erosion. The question is about future scenarios, which we should work on together.
 * (Peter) You have the potential for integration. Taking small steps, you can take demonstrable benefits for the farmer without too big a risk for farmers, and that's the kind of approach we want to look into. Farmers start getting yield, and then we can include.
 * (Tilahun) In Harar, no extension is involved for chat (stimulant crop) production; farmers are operating alone, using a lot of water. Once farmers see the benefits they go for much higher use of resources (because it brings a much higher return on investment also).
 * (Aberra) There is a field day planned in mid-November. Currently happening in Endamehoni and next happening in Lemo and other sites - perhaps there are lessons to be shared.
 * Kalpana- If soil has very low organic matter, how can NPK be retained? How can we make the system sustainable?
 * A: You don't need soils, so long as you have water and nutrients. The country initiative to manage landscapes with SWC is now having positive impact on soil carbon sequestration. There is long term impact thanks to rotation, biomass management etc. to ensure accumulation of carbon. You need biomass.
 * (Jane): Is this mono-cropping system in Endamehoni?
 * A: Yes predominantly. 10% is legumes but 90% is cereals. Potatoes are a new crop.

**3.** Research highlight on irrigated fodder (Aberra Adie)

 * Presentation available here soon**

We are trying to source money from credit systems for the farmers to buy sheep. We eventually borrowed project money to buy sheep that become the project's property but are loaned to farmers. These sheep are bought through Doyo Gena farmer cooperative and fattening started late May. The fattening ration was the farmers' own feed supplemented. Many different types of feeds. A field day was conducted and farmers ranked the sheep.

Conclusions: __Q&A__:
 * Farmers demanded a better water lifting to expand small scale irrigation.
 * Their feed resource was not enough to fatten 5 sheep for a longer period of time
 * Farmers were overwhelmed by the feed consumption of the sheep
 * The labor demand to manage 5 fattening sheep was much higher than their expectation
 * Farmers believed the expected profit from 5 fattened sheep is comparable to that of a bull
 * Peter: Useful insights and we need to look at compensation measures and financing sheep for such trials (tricky!).

**4.** Plans for coming months (e.g. monthly field trips)

 * ILRI@40 events 6-8 November
 * Africa RISING learning event
 * ICRISAT meeting late November

**5. AOB**
__Kalpana__: Field days are becoming very expensive. For DAs, PAs and woreda experts. We need to pay perdiem for the experts. __Kindu__: There are 2 types of field days: farmer-to-farmer and other (larger) field days. The former are cheap (we just pay for snacks), but the latter requires more money as we invite our partners from Universities, woredas, zones, NGOs etc.). For large field days, Africa RISING project budget is covering this, not the protocol budget holders.