The district administrations of Jeldu and Diga, located in the Oromia region of Western Ethiopia, hosted field days along district level Innovation Platform (IP) meetings at the Humidtropics action sites in Jeldu and Diga, October 12-18. The second national level Research for Development (R4D) meeting also took place within the time frame.
The field visits allowed participants to get a panoramic overview of the impacts of integrated systems research carried out by four CG centers (IWMI, ILRI, ICRAF and CIP) and national partners and how the work is changing lives and landscapes in the region. The research focuses on improving natural resource management, agricultural and livestock productivity, food security and nutrition as well as farm household income.
Second R4D meeting
A follow up to the first R4D meeting held in February this year, the second national level R4D meeting was organized by the Ambo University in Oromia, on October 13, at the university premises. It brought together more than 30 experts from academic and research institutions, government offices, NGOs and development partners to discuss on the implementation of the Humidtropics project on the ground and to design scaling-up strategies.
Those in attendace exchanged fruitful insights and applauded the tangible progress made on the ground because of the interventions. As a scaling-up strategy, the meeting also established a task force to influence and bring onboard policy makers.
Farmers’ field day and district level IP meetings
Two individual groups of around 100 participants attended the farmers’ field days to the two action sites. Those in attendance included district heads, agriculture and livestock office representatives, and researchers from various academic institutions working in the areas. Around 30 selected individuals from each action site participated in the IP meetings held from October 15-18. They included mainly included farmer representatives, cooperatives, concerned government offices and NGOs.
The IP meetings at both sites evaluated a number of activities under the Humidtropics project that have been implemented by each partner and identified challenges and opportunities. Similar to the R4D platform, the participants of these meetings expressed that the two humidtropics sites are an ideal place to see impacts of integrated systems research. However, they underlined the significance of addressing the main challenges to the project such as lack of market linkages and the need to scale up the established approaches in order toimpact the value chain of selected crops in the region.
Teklu Erkossa, Kindie Getnet and Desalegne Tadesse attended the events from IWMI.
