Minutes: Jimma Zone, Expert Consultation Meeting for LIVES Project

Date: June 4, 2012

Duration Time: Morning from 9:15-12:20

Afternoon: 2:25-3:25pm

Venue: Office of the Vice Head for Office of Agriculture

Agenda

1. Introduction to LIVES Project Objective

2. Selection of Potential LIVES Woredas

3. Value Chain Actors Inventory and Linkage Analysis

4. Assigning persons to facilitate Zonal Level Data Collection task of the LIVES Team

Participants

No. Name Organization Responsible Cellphone 1. Mulatu Wubishet Oromia Eas Shoa OoA Irrigation Agronomy 0916850766 2. Nigatu Alemayeh ILRI Researcher 3. Temesgen Minamo Jima Zone Livestock 047119043 Agency 4. Dr. Gutuma Keno Livestock Agency Head 0917833317 5. Siyoum Ademe OoA- Jimma Input Supply 0917833445 6. Jeju Chilbo WME Office-Jimma 0917846032 7. BekeleTaye OoA-Jimma Process 0911813693 owner/teamleader 8. Akib Abafogi Zonal Economic Monitoring and Evaluation 0911950794 Development Office- Expert Jimma 9. Kurbachew Yeshewawork Oromia Water and 0911867147 Bureau Energy 10. Tekalign Mitiku Livestock Agency Livestock Extension Expert 0921 193563 -Jimma 11. Husien Reshid Livestock Agency Veterinarian 0911207774 -Jimma 12. Shafi Bushira Cooperative Promotion Expert 0917930328 Office-Jimma 13. Yohanese Aklilu Zonal WME Expert 0913481122 14. Negesu Debere OoA-Jimma 0911968697 15. EphremTesema (PhD) ILRI LIVES Consultant 0911151250 16 Dawit Assefa OARI 17 Fanos Mekonnen ILRI 18 Abera Kettema Oromia livestock agency

1. Introduction and Discussion on the LIVES Project

After the self-introduction of the participants, Dr. Ephrem Tesema presented the rational, objective, components, expected ultimate results and intermit outcomes, target commodities and geographic locations and details on the overall process of the project planning phase. Then Fanos presented details on the Woreda selection modalities and criteria showing the list of Woredas along with proposed commodities for Jimma Zone. The proposed commodities include Poultry, Apiculture,Small Ruminants and Irrigated Agriculture. Then participants of the zonal expert consultation team raised the following questions:

Questions: If we work on irrigated agriculture why you do we not differentiated fruit and vegetable separately as independent commodities?

Answered by Ephrem and Kurabachew that it is to the best advantage of the selected Zones and Woredas to put animal feed, fruits and vegetable under irrigated agriculture as every area is allowed to prioritized only four potential commodities. Focusing on manageable number of commodities will also strengthen the relationship between livestock and irrigable agriculture as complimentary rather than separately seen activities. Irrigable agriculture also contains many types of fruits and vegetable commodities which need flexible management in accordance with a number of factors including market access, demand and volume of supply etc. Thus, the irrigable agriculture benefits the target areas by providing broader options to involve in many different types of fruits and vegetable products over time.

Questions: There are woredas within the Zone where afew NGOs are operational!Thus do you think they create duplication of efforts when LIVES come into the picture?

Answered by Nigatu, if the commodities being developed by the NGOs are the same with that of LIVES,it is better not to create a possible duplication of efforts. However, if the target commodity chain is different or the focus of the project is differ from LIVES it is possible to work in complementarity to each other and in a way to create synergy. . It depends on the kind of intervention a particular NGO doing matters not its presence in any of the target districts.

Questions: We have potential on beef; there are around four woredas who have potential for Beef/fattening. Thus, how can we choose only small ruminants?

Fanos: If we put beef here we should drop one of the commodities since a district can only priorities four commodities for LIVES intervention. Questions: Why do not we relate beef with Small ruminant, dairy with poultry?

Answer: by Nigatu: We are going to work on value chain development and every value chain has got different actors to involve, different types of input, market potential and dynamics and cannot aggregately put together. For example the kind of value chain actors involved in poultry and the kind of technology we are using is entirely different from that of poultry or beekeeping. I f we select dairy it is a different chain ( input, technology, actors etc.) .

Question: In Jimma zone we have potential for poultry, honey, dairy (withthe growth of the university), It is good if we work on beef.

Nigatu: Small ruminant is a commodity that we can reach the small holder, resource poor farmers and women as well. So small ruminant is recommended by the region as anindispensable commodity although the ultimate choice lies on the preference of the Zone.

Finally, the Zonal expert consultation team are reached at consensus on the proposed commodities on the basis of the recommendation from Oromia region expert consultation team, the information given by ILRI on the basis of zonal level statistics and GIS supported data on the prioritized commodities for Jimma Zone.

2. Selection of Potential Woredas

The Zonal Expert consultation team and the LIVES team held a long discussion to decide on the selected Woredas of Jimma Zone. The selction was made on the basis of the following criteria

1. Production potential

2. Market potential

3. Market and other infrastructures

4. Availability of Capacity

During the Woreda Selection, the zonal Consultation team raised the following points in addition to the criteria stated above:

1. Woreda such as Dedo have rich potential for irrigable commodities like potato but the extension activity some years ago was weak. It is possible to improve the existing extension service delivery through capacity building if the Woreda qualifies for LIVES intervention

2. SekaChekorsa is a beginner in apiculture but has shown an encouraging progress recently. Thus, even if honey/wax is ranked as a limited potential (1) we need to consider its current progress and potential if supported by new technologies. It has also access road linkage with the SNNPR and with other woredas which is an indicator for its market potential 3. The expert representing Zone Economic Planning suggested that ranking districts should be done on the basis of statistical evidences such as the number of livestock population (Poultry, small ruminants) and bee colony etc. However, it is stated that the statistical information on the basis of which the LIVES team mapped potential districts were known to be collected from the zone livestock agency. As a result, the information indicated on the GIS supported data and the statistics compiled by LIVES team clearly indicate the potential of the zone.

After going through the suggested potential and other issues in line with each district in the Zone, the zonal expert team selected the following three districts as suitable for LIVES implementation site in Jimma Zone:

1. Kersa

2. SekaChekorsa

3. Dedo

The three districts got 10 points (which is the highest) and also made clustered to each other which is suitable for cross-fertilizing impact and for the management of the project intervention.

Jimma Zone Commodity/Woreda Selection

Name of Tot No. Districts Proposed Commodities al

Honey/Wa S.Ruminan Irrigated Poultry x t Agriculutre

1. Non Benja 2 1 2 1 6

2. LimuKosa 2 2 2 2 8

3. Sekoru 2 1 1 1 5

4. TiroAfeta 2 1 1 2 6 5. Kersa 3 2 2 3 10

6. Mena 2 3 2 2 9 SekaChekors 7. a 3 1 3 3 10

8. Dedo 3 1 3 3 10 9. Omonada 3 1 3 2 9 10 . Sigmo 2 3 2 1 8 11 . Setema 2 3 2 1 8 12 . ShebeSenbo 2 2 2 3 8 13 . ChoraBoter 1 1 2 1 5 14 . Gumay 1 2 2 1 6

4. Value Chain Actors Inventory and Linkage Analysis

In the afternoon’s session, the Zonal expert team broadly discussed on major value chain actors at zonal level and the degree of linkage observed among these VC actors. The summery of the discussion can be referrreed from the VC Actors inventory Matrix for Jimma Zone.

5. Assigning persons to facilitate Zonal Level Data Collection task of the LIVES Team and writing support letter for the selected districts

Finally, based of the request of LIVES team, the Vice OoA Head assigned different expert individuals to avail zonal level secondary data. A support letter is also prepared by OoA for the selected districts.

The rest of the afternoon is spent on zonal level secondary data collection and compilation.