SPEECH BY THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, STATE DEPARTMENT FOR CROP DEVELOPMENT, HON. PHILLIP KELLO HARSAMA, ON THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE HORTICULTURE LAB 2023 PUBLIC DAY EVENT ON WED 24^TH MAY 2023

THE DIRECTOR, HORTICULTURE INNOVATION LAB

DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

• I am greatly honored to be here today to officially open this year’s 2023 Annual Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture Conference, which seeks to provide a platform for stakeholder engagement and the exchange of information with value chain players.
• The Agriculture Sector is the mainstay of Kenya’s economy contributing over 33% of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and an additional 27% to GDP through linkages with manufacturing and service-related sectors.
• Indeed, the theme of the conference, “Resilient Fruit and Vegetable Value Chains: Nourishing Our Lives, Empowering local communities and cottage industries.” clearly demonstrates that Agriculture sector is central to economic growth and transformation. It employs 40% of the total population and about 70% of the rural population while it accounts for 65 per cent of the country’s export earnings.
• The Conference theme aligns with the Kenya’s Agriculture Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS), 2019-2029, that highlights the Government’s initiatives to build households’ food resilience by increasing smallholder farmers’ incomes through supporting high agricultural productivity and value addition. The Strategy recognizes that Kenya’s vibrant agribusiness sector has tremendous potential to be a powerful engine of transformation. The implementation as much as possible is to be done through the private sector.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

• Horticultural exports have undergone tremendous growth in the last 10 years, from KES 80 Billion earnings in 2013 to about KES 160 Billion in 2022. This development trend has been very encouraging and the country has been able to earn the much needed foreign exchange, besides providing food for the population, employment, and providing raw materials for the processing industry.
• I am delighted to note that in this conference, key stakeholders and experts from academic, government, non-profit and private sectors of horticulture, nutrition, gender equity, youth engagement, and agri-entrepreneurship, will gather to speak, discuss and share their experiences from within the region and beyond.
•  There is need to enhance linkages with researchers, academia, extension providers and regulators to meet the ever-growing demand for market volumes and quality of our fruits. The critical role of fruits and vegetables for healthy populations and economic empowerment of smallholder farmers; forming partnerships for sustainable development of the horticulture sector, bridging gaps among sector actors; to nurturing resilient horticultural value chains, and  overcoming climate change and other food system shocks.

Ladies and gentlemen,

• The Government has put in place policies that have facilitated investments into the horticulture sector and deliberately improved rural infrastructure that has enabled the movement of produce across the country and establishment of private cooling chain facilities to support post- harvest handling of the fruits and vegetables.
• Further, Government has facilitated horticulture development through tax free imports of some farm inputs and the development of export logistic handling facilities at the port of exit.
• Important to note is that exporters of processed horticultural products are exempted from paying levies as part of the Governments initiative to reduce exports of primary products
• The government has actively tried to mitigate Kenya’s reliance on European markets by opening new trade and flight routes to other countries, particularly the US, China and Russia, and the Middle East as, well as promoting Kenya’s entry into regional value-chains, particularly for small- and medium-sized players
• The promotion of exports goes hand in hand with the promotion of production for the markets and processing, as well as local consumption. Today we have here with us champions of value addition including exporters and processors who produce mango pulp (puree), juices, jam, jellies, crisps, cosmetics among other products for domestic and export markets.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

• The world is now going green using renewable energy for environmental conservation. The government has put measures to encourage climate smart and sustainable production practices through resilient value chains that can withstand climate shocks and sustain livelihoods.
• As countries around the world race to fight the effects of climate change, carbon trading continues to gain popularity.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

• The lucrative horticultural industry has faced several constraints namely;  Low incentives in terms of local market prices, High costs of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides), Stringent international standards and market requirements, which are a barrier to accessing the export market., and post-harvest losses and lack of quality to improve consumer acceptance

• The National Government, in collaboration with other stakeholders, is addressing these challenges, through improved market linkages and access, empowerment of farmers and strengthening of support institutions under the Ministry of agriculture, including AFA. To this end I’m calling upon all stakeholders to work very closely with the Government, and Food Authority offices with the objective of accessing these beneficial services.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

• Today’s conference has brought together the different players along the fruit and vegetables value chain. I expect participants in this conference to bring out the challenges within the value chain and come up with interventions and chart a workable way forward.
• I sincerely want to appreciate the conveners and sponsors of this conference, International Center for Evaluation and Development (ICED), and  the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for hosting and supporting this year’s 2023 annual event
• With these few remarks, I declare this conference officially opened.

THANK YOU.

,

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture Convenes Regional Horticulture Stakeholders in Nairobi to Discuss Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Sector

On May 24, 2023, in Nairobi, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture (ILH) in collaboration with the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED), convened key stakeholders and experts in horticulture, nutrition, gender equity, youth engagement, agri-entrepreneurship, and other related fields, mainly from East Africa. Themed “Resilient Fruit and Vegetable Value Chains: Nourishing Our Lives, Empowering Local Communities and Cottage Industries’, the conference served as a unique platform for dialogue, knowledge and experience sharing among stakeholders in the region and beyond.

Horticulture is a major source of income and nutrition for many households in the East Africa region. In Kenyan, the sector is the third largest foreign exchange earner generating around 150 billion shillings annually and supports millions of livelihoods. However, the sector continues to grapple with constraints along the value chain compounded by uncoordinated markets and limited know-how by many small-scale farmers to produce high-quality crops.

Funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by ICED in collaboration with ILH, the new horticulture project in East Africa seeks to enhance horticultural production in the region by addressing challenges experienced across the value chain through research. This four-year initiative is designed to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across East Africa.

Dr. David Sarfo Ameyaw, ICED’s President and CEO remarked “The horticulture sector makes significant contribution to the collective GDP of the region. But smallholder horticulture farmers still face bottlenecks around access to market and inability to meet the required quality for export,” “This initiative will seek to generate evidence and insights that will support formulation of evidence-based policies to strengthen the sector,”

While delivering keynote address on behalf of the Principal Secretary, State Department for Crop Development, Josephine Simiyu-Head of Regulations and Compliance at the Horticulture Crops Directorate-Agriculture and Food Authority, remarked: “The Conference theme aligns with the Kenya’s Agriculture Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS), 2019-2029, that highlights the Government’s initiatives to build households’ food resilience by increasing smallholder farmers’ incomes through supporting high agricultural productivity and value addition.,” “The Strategy recognizes that Kenya’s vibrant agribusiness sector has tremendous potential to be a powerful engine of transformation. The implementation as much as possible is to be done through the private sector.”

Dr. Peninah Yumbya, East Africa Horticulture Regional Hub manager remarked “Identification and prioritization of the challenges and opportunities in the Horticulture sector by key stakeholders and practitioners is critical for targeted interventions to achieve productive, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive growth of the horticulture sector in East Africa.

The project’s activities will involve local research institutions, county governments, private sectors, traders, and women’s groups. The goal of this collaborative project is to increase productivity, profitability, and consumption of horticultural produce in the rural areas.

“Fruits and vegetables play a crucial role in nourishing our communities. We are excited to collaborate with ICED and our global partners in addressing challenges and seizing opportunities in horticulture. Together, we strive to ensure that East African families have access to essential nutrients while ensuring farmers can generate successful livelihoods within horticultural production and marketing.” Said Erin McGuire, Associate Director, Feed the Future ILH.

For further information about the event, please visit: https://horticulture.iced-eval.org/

Media contact:

Stephine Ogutu, hellosteveogutu@gmail.com

International Centre for Evaluation and Development

A case of Rice Farmers under Irrigation Schemes in the Upper East Region of Ghana

Drought remains a serious threat for food security across Sub-Saharan Africa because of the overdependence of rain-fed agriculture. Beyond that, it makes farming a risky venture, thereby hindering smallholder farmers’ access to credit required for the adoption of supplemental irrigation, insurance and other risk management strategies. Over the years, supplemental irrigation and index insurance has widely been advocated to manage risk associated with rain-fed agriculture. This has resulted in the establishment of a couple of irrigation facilities in Ghana and the promotion of individual small-scale irrigation farms and insurance products. However, the adoption of supplemental irrigation and insurance is considerably low in Ghana and across Africa.

In this regard, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience in collaboration with the International Centre for Evaluation and Development is supporting a research team from the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ghana to implement an ALL – IN Project to test an innovative bundle of supplemental irrigation and a drought index insurance product to expand farmers’ overall drought protection. This innovation could unlock investments that leverage the benefits of irrigation and better-managed risk, further improving long-term agricultural growth and resilience in rural communities.

Due to the risky nature of agricultural production, Professor John Kuwornu, the Principal Investigator, and his team under this research project recently concluded a study involving 477 rice farmers operating under the Vea and Tono Irrigation Schemes in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The study investigated how farmers perceive risk and the adoption of risk management instruments among irrigated rice farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana.

Findings of this study brought fourth interesting evidence and insights: First, the results showed that the perception index score was considerably high. This implies that the farmers perceive that various types of risks including production, marketing and financial risks affect their farming activities. The study found that farmers use multiple risk management techniques concurrently to manage risk. This includes the adoption of improved rice varieties, use of synthetic agrochemicals, participation in off-farm work, practising crop rotation, diversification and participation in contract farming. Interestingly, the study revealed that although all the farmers are utilising supplemental irrigation via the Tono and Via irrigation schemes, none of them had any form of agricultural insurance.

Second, using a multivariate probit regression approach, the study revealed that farmers’ socio-demographic, farm-level, institutional, risk perceptions and environmental factors have a significant and heterogeneous effect on the adoption of risk management instruments and the intensity of adoption. Particularly, gender, years of education, total farm size, rice farm size and soil fertility status significantly predict the adoption of crop diversification as a risk management instrument. In other words, male farmers with large farm sizes are able to practice crop diversification, whereas those with large rice farm size, more years of education and observe decline in their soil fertility status are unlikely to practice crop diversification.

The study found that gender, years of education, farm size, rainfall prediction and soil fertility status influence the adoption of off-farm work as a risk management instrument. The findings also revealed that the practice of crop rotation as a risk management instrument is influenced by gender, farming experience, access to extension services, the land tenure system, total farm size, market risk perception, and soil fertility status. Thus, males with more experience in farming, who had access to extension agents, owned their farmlands, and perceived that the agricultural market is risky are more likely to practice crop rotation, whiles those who observed a decline in the fertility of their soil are unlikely to practice the same. Further, farmers who have access to agricultural extension influence their participation in contract farming as a risk management instrument.

To help address the challenge, the researchers offer certain recommendations including the need for insurance companies to develop strategies to ensure the uptake of the insurance policies by farmers within the irrigation scheme. Moreover, investment in extension services, research centres, and irrigation facilities is critical, as this may persuade the farmers to use the risk management tools. Further, stakeholders should consider farmers’ risk perceptions when designing risk management instruments.

The ALL-IN project is being implemented by Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience in collaboration with the International Centre for Evaluation and Development. The project is supporting 12 research projects to test financial and market innovations that take the most promising agricultural tools for families in Africa from the lab to the field.

A Case of Dr. Florence Kyoheirwe Muhanguzi, Principal Investigator under the ALL-IN research project implemented by Makerere University

In Africa, access to funding opportunities remains a major bottleneck for development researchers to expand their work. Limited technical capacity to map and meet the complex grant requirements has inhibited efforts by these researchers to generate evidence and insights needed to meet the pressing development needs as captured in Africa Agenda 2063, Sustainable Development Goals and other country-specific development plans.

To help bridge this important gap, ALL-IN program, implemented by Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience (MRR) in collaboration with International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED), is supporting 12 research projects to test financial and market innovations that take the most promising agricultural tools for families in Africa from the lab to the field.

Implemented in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana and Ethiopia-ALL IN is addressing capacity gaps that confront research institutions in managing large and complex awards. To achieve this, the project conducts continuous tailor-made capacity strengthening sessions designed to equip them with knowledge and skills to develop fundable grant proposals. Through these sessions, researchers get to learn about emerging research tools relevant to their work.

Dr. Florence Muhanguzi, an Associate Professor at the Makerere University, is implementing ALL-IN-funded project seeking to strengthen the resilience and empowerment of women smallholder farmers in Uganda. 

“Engaging with new tools in the field such as the project level project level Women Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) and gender transformative approaches has been empowering and enabled me to translate theory to practice. I have been teaching gender studies for over 20 years, but had not engaged with translating theory to practice,” says Florence

Trainings on writing research grant proposal is already enabling researchers like Florence to secure funds to expand their work. “One key lesson leant is that integrating capacity strengthening in research supports local leadership in research,” says Florence, “The knowledge, skills and confidence acquired from engaging in ALL-IN capacity strengthening events enabled me to apply and win a large grant from one of the international development research funders.  As an African researcher, I now know that you can apply for a large grant and win,”

 “Inspiring stories like Florence’s are why ICED exists. ALL-IN is ensuring local researchers have the right capacity to generate evidence to help unlock issues like food insecurity in the continent,” says Dr. David Ameyaw, ICED’s CEO.

ALL-IN is providing a unique platform for US-African research collaborations to cross-pollinate ideas and innovations around development research. Through the project, African institutions are leading in defining priorities, working with US university researchers to supplement their own skills, talents, and ideas.

Drought risk presents a major risk for agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa, owing to the predominance of rain-fed agricultural practices. In Ghana, vast majority of smallholder farmers depend on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods, and they are more often afflicted by the vagaries of drought risk in the form of erratic rain patterns.

Over the past two decades, studies have shown that development and expansion of drought index insurance could help famers manage drought. However, uptake of agricultural insurance products has been low in low-income countries. The fundamental problem of basis risk confronting smallholder farmers remain unresolved. Supplemental irrigation, the application of additional water to otherwise rain-fed crops, is another potential tool for farmers to adapt to frequent drought. The real value of supplemental irrigation lies in its capacity to bridge dry spells when rainfall fails to provide essential moisture for crops. However, supplemental irrigation has not reached significant scale in most countries across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Feed the Future ALL-IN is supporting a research team from the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ghana to test an innovative bundle of supplemental irrigation and a complementary index insurance product to expands farmers’ overall drought protection.  

Recently, the research team led by Professor John Kuwornu, the Principal Investigator, trained 722 farmers (drawn from parts of Tamale, Bolgatanga and Navrongo in Ghana) in a three-day workshop designed to inform farmers about research activities in their community; educate them about water and irrigation management on their farms; and insurance product available to them as a result of the study.  

The workshop involved a series of sessions delivered by various experts in areas like irrigation and field water management, soil and water engineering and technology. Topics covered under drought insurance included: Understanding Drought Index Insurance (DII); How DII work; Target Group; Types of Crops; Coverage Period; Taking of Coordinates and Premium Rate. On the other hand, topics on irrigation water management training session included: Overview of irrigation; Supplementary and total irrigation; Types of irrigation; Surface irrigation systems; Irrigation efficiencies; Soil water relationship; Crop water requirement; Irrigation scheduling and Good water management practices in rice fields.

An end-of-workshop assessment established that the majority of participants found the training beneficial. “The farmers indicated their understanding of the content delivered, 83% admitted that the information they received was either easy or too easy to understand, 14.5 % said the content was just right and the remaining 2.4 % said the content was difficult,” says John “This means that majority of the farmers understood what they have been taught,”

Recently, 21 participants benefited from an Impact Evaluation Training Workshop for Policymakers organized by USAID’s ALL-IN Largescale Land Transactions (LSLTs) project at the University of Gondar, Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI) and Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research. Participants were drawn from 12 governmental institutions including Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Planning and Development, Ministry of Health, Commercial Bank of Ethiopian, Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration and other ministries and research Institutes.

The workshop, held on March 14- 15, was facilitated by various experts including Dr. Solomon Zena Walelign, LSLTs’s Principal Investigator. The training involved series of sessions that sought to introduce the importance of impact evaluation for policymaking as well as train policymakers on the basic concepts and methods of impact evaluation; discuss practical case studies from Ethiopia and spur discussion on potential policies that could be evaluated using some of the impact evaluation methods; create a strong network among policymakers and researchers working in different sector at different ministries and research institutes and bring together policymakers and researchers working at different level with the interest and experience on impact evaluation from Ministries and research institutes in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia, like other global south countries, has been implementing different policies, interventions, projects and programs to promote socio-economic development, support the poor and decrease poverty levels. Understanding the impact of these policies, regardless of the political regime and remit of the policy or development program, will help to improve, reorient, or scale up the program. This requires local capacity that can undertake rigorous impact evaluations.

“Ethiopia faces a major intellectual challenge in this regard. Against this background, it is necessary to organize series of training program on impact evaluation for policymakers at different levels, “says Solomon.

Some of the topics covered included: introduction to impact evaluation; causal inferences and counterfactuals; Randomized Control Trial (RCT) and randomized promotion (encouragement) design – Theory and application; Matching – Theory and Applications; Identification of potential sectoral projects, funding, collaborations and experience sharing among others.

LSLTs is measuring the impacts of large-scale land transactions in Ethiopia and identifying the communities and households who benefit and those who does not. The results contribute evidence on how these transactions affect rural resilience, economic growth, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

ALL-IN is implemented by Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk & Resilience in collaboration with the International Centre for Evaluation and Development to strengthen capacity of development researchers across Africa to generate evidence that inform development policies to address pressing challenges like food insecurity.

Soil acidity problem is a significant cause of low and stagnated crop yields in Kenya, particularly for maize, which is the country’s main staple crop. But research demonstrate that few farmers test their soils or make soil management decisions based on knowledge about the condition of their soils.

To help generate evidence to bridge this gap, ICED and Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience (MRR) through the USAID’s ALL-IN research grant is funding Tegemeo Institute in Kenya to conduct a research dubbed Soil Testing for Soil Acidity Management on Smallholder Farms in Kenya. The research, whose Principal Investigator is Dr. John Olwande, aims to provide policy-relevant and evidence-based insights on practical ways to encourage farmers to understand and update their knowledge about the condition of their soils and subsequently apply appropriate soil amendments.

The researchers collected soil samples from 657 smallholder farms in 120 villages in 24 wards spread across Bungoma, Kakamega, Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu counties. Crop Nutrition Laboratory Services Ltd (Cropnuts), Tegemeo’s partner, conducted the soil analysis and developed the recommendations for soil acidity management and fertilizer application.

Before disseminating the soil analysis results and recommendations to the farmers, Cropnuts trained 53 agricultural officers in each of the study counties. “The purpose of the training was to expose the officers to the technical aspects of the soil analysis and interpretation of soil test results the basis on which the recommendations were made,” says Dr.  Olwande. “The training covered areas like Understanding soil analysis report; Interpretation of soil analysis data; Role of various nutrients in maize production; Negative effects of soil acidity on nutrients availability to maize plants among others,”

The soil test results and recommendations for acidity management and fertilizer application were distributed to the individual farmers whose soils were sampled and the farmers whose soils were not sampled but are part of the research. The researchers and Aagricultural Officers held in-person meetings with farmers across the 120 target villages and delivered and explained to them the results of the soil tests and recommendations. “This feedback session with the farmers was critical. While a few  farmers had had their soil samples taken by some organizations for testing before, none of them had ever received soil test results,” says Dr. Olwande

Emerging evidence from this study points to the importance of soil testing and its critical role in improving farm productivity among smallholder farmers. Importantly, based on these findings, the researchers provided a set of farm-specific and ward-level recommendations for maize production. First, they recommended application of calcitic and dolomitic lime to correct soil acidity. Majority of the farmers have heard about agricultural lime and acknowledge that lime is available in local agrodealer shops, but few of them have applied lime to their farms despite the fact that liming is required on majority of the farms.  

Secondly, the researchers also recommended the types of fertilizers to apply and the application rate, as well as application of organic matter (manure and/or compost). The fertilizers recommended to the farmers were locally available in the agrodealer shops, while some were being sold by county governments under their respective subsidy programmes.

“Through this project, ICED is strengthening locally-led research solutions to local development challenges experienced by critical sectors like agriculture.  We hope that insights from this project will be instrumental in shaping adoption of soil-testing and application of appropriate soil management practices by smallholders for improved yields,” says Dr. David Ameyaw, ICED’s CEO.

A team from The International Centre for Evaluation Development (ICED) led by the President and CEO, Dr. David Ameyaw is in Ethiopia holding talks with Officials of the Ethiopian Ministry of Planning and Development, other partners and civil society organizations on the progress of the Evidence to Action Conference to be held in Ethiopia this year.

• _{^{Dr. Fitsum Assefa Adela (right) holding talks with Dr. David Ameyaw (second right), Dr. Solomon Zena Walelign and Hon. Tirumar Abate Ayalew (extreme left)}}

The ICED team, which also has Dr. Solomon Zena Walelign Director of Research, met with the Minister for Planning and Development, Dr. Fitsum Assefa Adela, State Ministers of the Ministry of Planning and Development H.E. Sandokan Debebe and Hon. Tirumar Abate Ayalew, H.E. Professor Beyene Petros, the Director General of the Policy Studies Institute, H.E. Dr. Becker Shale, Director General of the Ethiopian Statistics Services, the President of the Ethiopian Economics Association, Prof. Mengistu Kete and the President of the Ethiopian Evaluation Association, Mr. Seifu Tadesse.

Click the link below to register for this webinar.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sfuivrD4vGNYVBKUipoL1-da_wOLdoJNC