Agricultural Extension and Communication

The research department has been instrumental in creating linkages, promoting participatory approaches and enhancing behavioral change of farmers and other stakeholders. The research team has been working in a number of areas including introducing of new technologies, promoting community-based seed production, gender and stakeholder’s linkage. Accordingly, thousands of farmers have been reached every year through creating awareness at different events (field day, training demonstration and mass media). From the demonstration fields, impressive yield results were obtained in improved technologies. Read More

Likewise, farmers preference criteria for sorghum, lowland pulses, maize, onion, tomato, and pepper were documented. Besides, the research department contributed to the technical capacity development and livelihood improvement of farmers and front level agricultural development workers. Moreover, the team has been playing a vital role in institutionalizing participatory research and extension. Read More

Ethiopia’s agricultural research and extension systems are public services. Agricultural research activities are operated by more than seventy agricultural research centers of federal and regional national state governments, nearly twenty agricultural faculties of universitiesii with fifteen hundred researchers. Since 2002, the government reinforced the extension system by increasing the number of extension workers to sixty thousand and establishing twelve thousand farmer training centers (FTCs); the scale of this public extension services are unparalleled in Africa. Being guided by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), day-to-day extension activities are carried out by field level extension workers who are employed by the regional national state governments under the management of district agricultural offices. Read More