The goal of the Ethiopian Seed Partnership is to increase small-scale food producers’ food security, nutrition, and resilience to shocks and stresses by improving access to quality seed of adapted varieties. We will improve 1 million small-scale food producers’ access to quality seed, decrease the yield gaps of 500,000 of them, and expand the area under sustainable agricultural practices by 12,500 hectares. Our impact will be enhanced and sustained by effective layering upon gender, nutrition, and climate interventions.
The Ethiopian Seed Partnership
ESP builds upon the Ethiopia-Netherlands Seed Partnership by reaching beyond its original mandate to enable the business of the private sector and enters new areas affected by drought and conflict. Here, we strengthen humanitarian responses to seed insecurity, build capacities in farmer- & community-based seed systems and rehabilitate seed service delivery where it has collapsed. Objectives support Ethiopia’s Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and EU Delegation to Ethiopia.
Guiding sector transformation
In 2019, MoA published the document ‘Transforming the Ethiopian Seed Sector: Issues & Strategies’. We underscore the agenda’s objectives, which are structured according to: production; value chain development; service provision; consumption; stakeholder organization; regulation; coordination; and investment. Our strategy applies this logic.
Four primary outcomes
1. Private sector strengthened
Activities boost the production and diversity by three quarters in the portfolios of 25 domestic seed businesses, including PLCs and seed producer cooperatives. A business incubator improves the inclusion and equity of female entrepreneurs in the sector. Support is given to Ethiopian Seed Association and the uptake of quality seed of improved varieties in six value chains for food security and nutrition.
2. Uptake of innovations and empowerment
Selected knowledge institutes improve their seed-related curricula and courses, and 350 youth – of which half are women – enhance their capacities through education, training, and internships in the seed sector. Furthermore, 50,000 farmers (50% women) are trained on sustainable agricultural practices.
3. Effective seed insecurity response
This new component focuses on conflict, disaster, & climate-related shocks and stresses. Humanitarian efforts will become more fit for purpose. Practicing market-based
responses and options for strategic seed reserves will be pursued. We will strengthen farmer- & community-based seed systems by establishing three community seed banks and introducing 30 climate-resilient varieties, and where conflict brought service provision to an abrupt halt, we will reconstruct no less than 10 strategic assets.
4. Enabling transformation
This will be measured by 15 or more improvements in seed policy and regulation. We support five platforms contributing to policy development, implementation and coordination, improve service provision of 10 seed regulatory bodies and leverage € 20 m in trade and investment. The Partnership will convene the humanitarian, development, and peace (HDP) nexus to align these communities’ efforts.
Crops and target groups
Crops important for food security and nutrition for which genetic gains are possible receive more attention. Building resilience to shocks and stresses is paramount to efforts we make to diversify crop and variety portfolios. We will identify how best to support agro-pastoralists, hosts to refugees, and internally displaced persons in selected areas.
Collaboration with other initiatives
Our scope is delimited from the Agricultural Growth Program and Agricultural Transformation Agency. Collaboration with these two and others, including AGRA, GIZ, HortiLIFE, BRIDGE and RAISE-FS will take place.
