Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research and Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa launch a new breeding program for five Ethiopian grain crops.

The initiative - ‘Seed System Enhancement through Development of Improved Varieties of Maize, Tef, Sorghum, Soybean and Faba bean in Ethiopia’ - will run for three years is said to  make a significant contribution to enhance household food security and incomes.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution will invest over US$ 1 million to reach directly and indirectly more than 200,000 smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. The majority of Ethiopians rely on these key grain crops for their calorie and protein intake, but yields are currently low.

The program aims to help improve food security through developing and deploying improved crop varieties.

“AGRA is pleased to have this opportunity to work with the Ethiopian Government to tackle a key bottleneck to farmers’ productivity. Through this collaboration, 20 tons of breeder and foundation seeds – the basic seed multiplied and sold to farmers – will be availed to seed enterprises annually.” said Joe DeVries, Director for AGRA’s Program for African seed Systems (PASS) which oversees the initiative.

The initiative will be implemented through various Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research centers at Bako, Debre Zeit, Melkasa, Kulumsa and Pawe.

Source: Walta