June 8, 2012, Addis Ababa: The Government of Ethiopia’s (GoE) Ministry of Agriculture, (MOA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation (MASHAV) announced the launch of the Smallholder Horticulture program (SHH), a joint technical cooperation program which aims to promote economic growth in rural areas by strengthening smallholder farmers’ production of fruits and vegetables with recognized market potential.
SHH seeks to address constraints and build the capacity of smallholder farmers to develop a competitive and sustainable horticulture sector aimed at tapping new market opportunities. The program will provide technical and financial support to disseminate technologies that have the potential to increase productivity and improve quality standards in order to ultimately increase farmers’ income.
SHH builds upon the successes of the USAID-MASHAV-MoA Joint Technical Program, an agricultural technology transfer and capacity building program which worked in the areas of plant bio-technology, fruits, horticulture and water management and irrigation from 2005 to 2012. The Joint Technical Program established five nurseries and upgraded four tissue culture laboratories to enhance Ethiopia’s horticultural production, while enhancing local expertise through capacity building activities and extension services to smallholder farmers.
In addition to the nurseries previously established by the USAID-MASHAV-MoA Joint Technical Program, the new SHH program will create 4 new nurseries and will support mass production at an addition 3 tissue culture laboratories. By the end of the project, the plant propagation system will reach an annual production of over 4 million tissue culture plants and over 300,000 nursery plants. The program will also provide intensive extension services to fruit and vegetable smallholders in woredas of its nursery sites in connection with the regional Bureaus of Agriculture and the project nurseries.
USAID and MASHAV signed a global Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Washington, DC on April 18 to increase cooperation on food security in Africa within the framework of USAID’s “Feed the Future” Initiative. Feed the Future is a US$3 billion global initiative of President Obama that plans to invest over $250 million in agriculture and nutrition programs in Ethiopia over the next five years. The MOU allows for closer cooperation between the two countries, particularly in MASHAV’s expertise in applied agricultural research, irrigation and agricultural production in arid zones. The Government of Ethiopia will support the SHH program by providing leadership, staffing and coordination in the implementation of nursery and capacity building activities.