AIFSC visit to Adoption Pathways project field sites

AIFSC Director, Ms Mellissa Wood and Biosecurity and Food Safety Manager Dr Dennis Bittisnich visited Adoption Pathways project sites in Ethiopia with members of the project team including Project Leader Dr Menale Kassie from 3-5 July 2013.

For Dennis, this was his first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa and he found it an eye-opening experience visiting the farmers at the sites south of Hawassa, “I was amazed at the number of self-sufficient farmers dotted across the agricultural landscape and delighted to see how subsistence farmers enthusiastically adopted and adapted to the conservation agriculture technologies. The smiles on their faces attested to impact of these innovations on their lives”.

In CIMMYT’s latest Informa you can read more about farmers such as Fatuma, a widowed mother of 10 and an early adopter of the conservation agriculture techniques promoted through the ACIAR-funded Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Systems for Food Security in East and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project. The AIFSC Adoption Pathways project is researching how the farmers involved in the SIMLESA work make decisions about adopting the conservation agriculture techniques and how they approach risk.

“The project will evaluate the data and use the rich survey information to advise on potential policy and technical interventions,” said Chilot Yirga, researcher with the Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture Research (EIAR) and country coordinator for the Adoption Pathways project.

Read more about the Adoption Pathways project. 

You can see photos from this visit on our facebook site - AIFSC field trip with CIMMYT to Ethiopia.