Outline of the Project

Project Title

Project for Smallholder Horticulture Farmer Empowerment through Promotion of Market-Oriented Agriculture (Ethio-SHEP)

Project Background

Agriculture is the main stay of Ethiopian economy, contributing more than 40% share in the gross domestic product (GDP), and approximately 85% of the population is engaged in agriculture.

However, the country's history is punctuated by food insecurity due to climatic variability and the poor performance of the agricultural sector. To address this problem, the government has been implementing several strategies, and have given due emphasis on increasing agricultural production and productivity. More and more smallholder farmers have engaged in horticulture production as the subsistence farming and also as cash crop production. Amount of the horticulture crop produced by smallholder farmers have been increased, but still there is some gap in market linkages.

JICA has started the training program called "Training Program for Market Oriented Agriculture for Smallholder Farmers" since 2014. After the training program in Japan, ex-participants of this training started to implement the pilot project in Oromia Region of Ethiopia. In the course of the pilot project implementation, considerable positive changes were observed among the target farmer groups such as embarking upon collective purchasing/marketing and diversifying crops to include high return cash crops (such as garlic). Recognizing this result, Government of Ethiopia(GOE requested Government of Japan(GOJ) for the technical cooperation to support GOE in promoting and scaling up market-oriented agriculture for smallholder horticulture farmers based on the experience in the pilot project.

Project Period

January 2017 －January 2022 (5 years)

Implementation Organizations

Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANR), Amhara Bureau of Agriculture (BoA), Oromia Irrigation Development Authority (OIDA)

Project Site

Four (4) Districts in Amhara Region
Four (4) Districts in Oromia Region

Overall Goal

The SHEP approach for market-oriented agriculture is promoted by the Ethiopian government.

Project Purpose

The SHEP approach which leads to increasing farmers' income from horticulture is proposed for future scaling-up through effective implementation.

Outputs

Output 1: Capacity on extension service delivery based on the SHEP approach is developed.
Output 2: The effective extension services based on the SHEP approach are delivered to the target farmers.
Output 3: The SHEP models suitable to the Regions' situations are developed and proposed.

Inputs by JICA

Dispatch of Experts, Training (Training of Counterparts in Japan and third countries), Machinery and Equipment, Vehicles, Office equipment, etc.