FARA Dissemination Note 17: 2017 Farmer Innovations Identified Through Farmer Innovation Contest in Ethiopia Ethiopian Development Research Institute January, 2017 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural www.research4agrinnovatiInnovation on .org Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Project and organizational summary .................................................................................................... 4 3. Evaluation result of the innovation applications .................................................................................. 5 3.1. Prescreening ................................................................................................................................. 5 3.2. Detail evaluation of prescreened innovations .............................................................................. 6 4. Description of winner innovations ........................................................................................................ 7 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 27 1. Introduction Hence, there is a need to revitalize Innovation is crucial for sustained farmers’ innovativeness and make their economic growth and competitiveness innovations functional. Innovative in the globalized world. In particular, farmers need to be recognized, innovation in agriculture is important to supported and promoted as well as their build resilience of farmers in the face of innovations need to be scaled-up. climate change. It would also lead to Farmer innovation contest is one way of continued productivity growth and food promoting and recognizing the security. innovations of farmers. The contest is In the past, agricultural innovation was considered to motivate the innovator perceived to be developed only by the and others for more innovations. It also scientific community, such as scientists mitigates innovation secrecy and and researchers in universities and enables identification of scalable research institutes, which is referred as innovations. top-down innovations. However, To this end, farmer innovation contest innovation developed in one area might was conducted in Ethiopia from not be applicable due to context specific November 7, 2016 to December 16, geographical and agro ecological 2016 in three districts of Arsi Zone, variations. Scientists could not also Oromia regional government, namely: develop innovation for all areas. Hetosa, Lode Hetosa and Digeluna Tijo. As a result, recently, there is recognition The contest was funded by German of farmers’ capacity to innovate and a lot government Federal Ministry for of attention is given to farmer Economic Cooperation and innovations. Farmer innovations are Development and implemented by the also thought to complement the Centre for Development Research scientific community innovations and are (ZEF) of the University of Bonn under less costly since they are developed their Program of Accompanying from locally available materials and Research for Agricultural Innovation farmers’ indigenous knowledge. (PARI). The contest was implemented in Ethiopia in partnership with Ethiopian However, due to less attention from Development Research Institute (EDRI). governmental and non-governmental The remaining sections of the report organization or limited institutional present the process/methodology/ of environment, the potential of farmer innovation contest, results of the innovations could not be utilized. This contest, and description of selected led to underutilization of a crucial innovations. potential for development and change in the agricultural sector. The report is organized as follows: section two presents project and organizational summary; section three 3 describes evaluation results of the • Contribute to the development of innovation applications; and section four the agri-food sector in Africa presents description of the winner through the identification, innovations. The full list, scores and assessments, and generation of ranks of all innovations in the three innovations districts and in their respective category are presented in appendix 1. The Ethiopian national partner, Ethiopian Development Research 2. Project and organizational Institute (EDRI), is a government summary institution that conducts rigorous economic research to provide high- Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural Innovation (PARI) is a quality economic policy and program of Centre for Development development analysis for decision Research (ZEF) of University of Bonn. It makers in both the state and non-state sectors. The institute has four centers, is implemented in 12 African countries and India in collaboration with local namely partners. In Ethiopia, it is implemented - Macro-economic and trade in collaboration with Ethiopian research center Development Research Institute. - Agriculture and rural The following are the goals of PARI. development research center - Micro and sectoral development Main Goal research center - Environment and climate • Contribute to sustainable research center agricultural growth and food security in Africa Sub Goals • Support and enhance investments in the Agricultural Innovation Centers (AICs) through research in cooperation with applications • Promote and support the scaling of proven innovations in the agri- food sector in Africa in collaboration and partnership with all relevant actors 4 3. Evaluation result of the Table 1: Number of innovations per innovation applications district and category (prescreening) Item Number of innovations 3.1. Prescreening Hetosa Lode Digeluna Sub- Hetosa Tijo total Farmer innovation contest was opened Female 6 0 0 6 from November 7 to December 16, 2016. Before opening the contest, Male 22 21 12 55 detailed training on the concept of Youth 10 8 1 19 farmer innovation and procedure of Total 38 29 13 80 farmer innovation contest were given to Out of 80 prescreened innovation, five scouters (development agents) in order innovations were dropped during further to get the right applications. In addition, screening procedure. The prescreening to avoid scouters bias in selecting the was done in Iteya town, a central farmer innovations, radio announcement location for all the target about the innovation contest were done Woredas/districts. for a month in two local languages (Oromiffa 20 days and Amharic 20 The prescreening committee was led by days). By the end of the application the project coordinator at EDRI and period, a total of 153 innovation comprises of four local facilitators and applications were submitted from the one additional staff from EDRI: Adane three districts. Bulo (Research Assistant-EDRI); Mustefa Hussen (Agronomist- Arsi Consequently, prescreening of Zone); Ketema Girma (Extension team innovation applications was done for leader-Hetosa district); Abu Amana about one week from December 19 – (Extension team leader-Lode Hetosa 24, 2016 using the following criteria: district) Hailue ( agriculturalist –Lude whether the innovation has some value Hitosa) and Andualem Moges addition or is unique from common (Extension team leader-Digeluna Tijo practice and technology developed by district). the scientific community; whether the innovation is within the food value chain; After the prescreening, translation of all and whether the innovation was the innovation application forms from developed without being assisted by Amharic to English was done from external body such as extension agents December 26-30, 2016. Finally, 75 or scientists. See Table 1 for detail. innovations were qualified for detail evaluation by the evaluation committee. 5 3.2. Detail evaluation of Table 2: Criteria used for evaluation prescreened innovations of farmer innovations Initially, panel of experts who serve to S.no. Criteria Weight evaluate prescreened innovations was allocate constituted by EDRI. The following 1. Originality/uniqueness 35% personalities were member of the 2. Economic potential 20% evaluation committee who represented 3. Easy to practice 15% 4. Affordability 10% with their personal professional capacity 5. Gender sensitiveness 10% and experiences in agricultural 6. Environmental friendly 10% innovation systems research and The evaluation committee was splited development. These were: into two groups to evaluate all 1. Dr. Tigabu Degu innovations. Mean weight of the two 2. Dr Million Gebreyes groups was used to rank innovations. In 3. Dr Samson Eshetu, due course of this evaluation, few 4. Mr. Adane Bulo innovations, which do not meet the set 5. Mr.Zelalem Lema; criteria were dropped by the two groups. 6. Ms. Amleset Haile 7. Mr. Mustefa Hussen Eventually, the committee has selected 8. Mr. Ketema Girma five top scored innovations from each 9. Mr. Abu Amana category (male, female and youth) to be 10. Mr. Andualem Moges verified in the field. Then, the evaluation committee went to the field to verify and The evaluation of the innovations was crosscheck the selected innovations. conducted for a period of one week Table 3 shows number of innovations (January 9-16, 2017). Half day training selected by district and category at the was given by the project coordinator, Dr. end of the evaluation. Tigabu Degu on January 9th 2017 for the evaluation committee on purpose, Table 3: Number of innovations per process and