“Now I know that PVS is not entirely done by experts, but it is an approach which equally involves farmers at the grassroots level to be researchers themselves”  

This newsletter brings together highlights from the programmes within the BENEFIT Partnership.

A self-sufficient, independent, market-oriented and internationally competitive Ethiopian seed sector.

Beyond the seed sector innovations of ISSD Ethiopia, the wider BENEFIT Partnership and other partners’ activities are leading to widespread agricultural innovation across Ethiopia.

ISSD Ethiopia’s Tigray Unit shares news and exciting programme updates in this newsletter.

Download and read exciting updates from ISSD’s Amhara unit.

Sustainable and successful seed sector development only happens when the entrepreneurial spirit and skills of farmers and other private sector stakeholders are leveraged for innovation and collaboration. Developing and nurturing these skills is a key aim of ISSD and partners.

BENEFIT-ISSD Ethiopia facilitates learning about variety suitability and farmers’ preferences across regions. Through participatory methods, farmers lead the testing and validation of varieties, with their experiences guiding variety development and deployment. 

“We would never have got the Certificate of Competence if we had not got the training and support from ISSD” Ato Tesfaye Babiso, Chairperson – Fate Dicha SPC Lessons from the previous ISSD Ethiopia phase revealed that the local seed business (LSB) development approach (focusing on seed producer cooperatives, or SPCs) is gaining more recognition…

This (Oromo language, with English elements) newsletter presents recent activities and achievements of the regional team in the first half of 2018 across the various programme components Download the newsletter here