Employing new technologies is preferable for increasing crop productivity. The experience of other countries shows that based on scientific research producing new technologies and introducing it to farmers is helpful.
Currently, the number of agricultural research institutions and seed enterprises is increasing and similar to this, the demand for selected seeds is rising and to meet the demand efforts by stake holders should continue. The demand for selected wheat and barley seeds is increasing.
Kehdir Nefo Beftu is the Oromya’s Selected Seeds Enterprise Executive Director. As to him, since the establishment of the enterprise four years ago, rigorous efforts have been made. Through mobilizing internal and external resources, the supply of seeds to farmers is increasing.
The selected seeds are in addition to increase productivity they serves to withstand drought, pest and herbs. To fulfill its mission, the enterprise cooperates with other domestic and foreign stakeholders including Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
Through this cooperation, it brings selected seeds from abroad and gets capacity building training. There are about 100 countries which are supported by AGRA and from time to time farmers could increase the utilization of agricultural technologies in their farm.
According to Kehdir, in the previous years the enterprise provided eight thousand quintal selected seeds to farmers. During the last crop season, it increased the supply and brought the seed volume to 330 thousand quintal. It has a plan to raise the supply to 400 thousand the coming crop season.
Currently, there are many enterprises engaged in supplying seeds to farmers. At the same time, there are illegal seed suppliers which provide invalid and unchecked seeds as a result and put farmers in disadvantageous position.
To overcome such kind of problem, farmers are advised only to purchase from legal enterprises. One of the objectives of the establishment of the Oromya seed enterprise is to address this problem. To conduct its day to day business, the enterprise utilizes two laboratories to check selected seed that either comes from abroad or from local sources and hybrid seeds.
In addition, it has 10 farms to make field experiments in different part of Oromia State. According to Kehdir, to adress the farmer’s scarcity of selected seeds, the enterprise bought 19 tractors and 6 harvesting machinery, built three warehouses which has a capacity to hold 50 thousand quintal crops. By now, it has seven branch offices in Assela, Hassasa, Dodola, Robe and Nekemte in Oromia state.
Asked whether the selected seeds brought from abroad are friendly or not to the environment , Kehdir said that, a checking work would take place before the seeds imported by checking samples and at the arrival, the seeds are quarantined then sent to the laboratory and finally they would be duplicated in farm and supplied to farmers. He further said, currently the agency has 1,270 workers and the research work of the enterprise is supported by two big laboratories known at country level.
Crops produced in the highland part of Oromya such as wheat and barley have dual values. They could be used for household consumption and for industrial inputs. The demand is increasing in the market. Wheat is being an impetus for the flourishing of manufacturing which produce pasta, macaroni and bread. Barely is also a major input for beer factory.
Hence, whenever the demand for industrial inputs increase, the value of utilizing selected seeds will rise. This indicates how the regional selected seed enterprise’s responsibility becomes higher.
According to the official report, due to the expansion of food and beverage industries, the demand for wheat and barley is increasing. Because of the short supply of wheat in the local market, factories are forced to import from abroad. All this indicated that, the value of the utilization of technology both in small and large scale farms is increasing.
As it is known in Oromya state and in Ethiopia at large agriculture is dominated by small scale subsistence farming and the utilization of agricultural inputs depends on the income of farmers. Those who afford the price of the inputs can get the inputs but those who can do not get the chance. Hence, to scale up the utilization, there is a need to employ mechanism to bridge this gap such as the provision of credit facility by organizing farmers in cluster farming.
With regard to the role of selected seeds in enhancing productivity per hectare Kehdir said that, previously, farmers used to produces up to 30 quintal wheat and barley per hectare in the highland ecology.
But after they received seeds from the Oromya Selected Seed Enterprise, they had managed to enhance the level of 40 quintal per hectare. As part of its plan, the enterprise is trying its level best to hybrid new seeds.
According to Kehdir, there are major tasks the enterprise expected to do and among others, adopting imported and local seeds produced by research, duplicating selected crops, fruits, vegetables and animal feed stalk seeds and disseminating to farmers in the various agroecological zones.
In addition, it is engaged in producing seed sowing technology and supplying to customers and studying the major challenges of farmers and formulates solutions. Since its establishment in the year 2001/02 till now, The enterprise has produced 917,910.98 quintal seeds and sold 634,645.515 quintal selected seeds to customers and the marketing lines of the enterprise are farmer unions, direct to customers and direct to farmers.
The Ethiopian Herald May 04/ 2011
BY ABEBE WOLDE GIORGIS
