Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Program (AMSDP) surpassed its target by 150 percent to increase maize production among smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.

AMSDP is a public private partnership between the US Agency for International Development (USAID), DuPont, and the Government of Ethiopia.

The program planned to help 100,000 smallholder farmers in 16 woredas. However, it has now managed to help 250,000 farmers in 53 woredas in Amhara, Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalitites and Peoples states.

Before the program was launched, these farmers used to harvest 2.2 tons per hectare. Now this figure has grown to 7.5 tons per hectare. Ever since its launch, participating farmers saw a 300 percent increase on average in their maize output.

The program has also created the opportunity for them to efficiently connect with markets. This has helped boost yearly incomes to as much as 1,500 USD per a single farmer.

AMSDP is a part of America’s Feed the Future initiative. The program has managed to mobilize fund from dollar for dollar matching programs between 2015-2018 and leveraged a two million dollar contribution from DuPont.

Source: Fortune