Posts Tagged: CFSP

CNFA’s Farm Service Centers, or “one-stop-shops” provide smallholder farmers with access to inputs and linkages to markets – the first network of its kind in Ethiopia.

The Commercial Farm Service Program (CFSP) recently held a ribbon cutting for one of the six Farm Service Centers it aims to open in Ethiopia’s Oromia regional state.

The Commercial Farm Service Program adapts CNFA’s proven Farm Service Center (FSC) model to the Ethiopian context for the first time to create a viable input supply network in Ethiopia’s Oromia regional state.

The Commercial Farm Service Program (CFSP), funded by USAID and implemented by CNFA, launched its first Farm Service Center today in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. This is one out of six centers that will be up and running by the end of this two-year pilot project. Aimed at improving smallholder productivity, food security and incomes, the FSCs are a “one-stop-shop” that provide smallholder farmers with agricultural inputs, services and technologies to help them produce surpluses and become better linked to end markets. CNFA has developed farm service center networks in Afghanistan, Georgia, Moldova and Romania.

USAID’s Commercial Farm Service Program and USAID’s Feed the Future Livestock Market Development project, both implemented by CNFA, hosted a half-day training and networking workshop at their office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this past Thursday.

Nine different media agencies including representatives from radio, newspaper and television participated in the event. During the workshop, CNFA provided information on its current USAID funded projects and helped facilitate a discussion on how the media covers development programs. In addition, Ato Mekuria Mekasha, an assistant professor, who has years of experience in conducting mass media trainings, engaged the audience with a presentation on “Eye Catching Story Writing.” The workshop concluded with the media actively participating in a Q&A session and presented several recommendations on how development organizations can better engage the media.

On June 4, 2013, the Commercial Farm Service Program (CFSP), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by CNFA, hosted a signing event between USAID and six grantees.  The $240,000 grant will support entrepreneurs and farmers’ cooperative unions in Ethiopia to establish six farm service centers (FSCs) in the Oromia State.  The program, funded through USAID’s Innovation Fund for Ethiopian Agriculture (IFEA), seeks to develop innovative projects and opportunities that diversify agricultural sector production and markets, while promoting enterprise development along entire value-chains. The FSCs to be established through the grant will provide a complete range of inputs, services, information and output marketing linkages to Ethiopian smallholders, allowing them to make the step from subsistence to commercial production.

The grantees, who are expected to match $1.5 million in matching funds, will take a direct role in transferring knowledge and technology to smallholder farmers.

The event, which took place at the Jupiter Hotel, hosted 35 participants including Partner International NGO’s, Ethiopian Government Officials and input suppliers. Chief of Party, Tim Bergstrom, along with USAID/Ethiopia Officer Chief of Economic Growth and Transformation, Gary Robbins and Furo Beketa of the Oromia Bureau of Agriculture spoke at the event before introducing the six grantees. The Deputy Chief of Party, Waktola Wakgari, introduced the six grantees to begin the signing ceremony.

After the signing ceremony, the grantees answered questions from the press and indicated that the technical insight and financial support extended to them by USAID and CNFA will help them in achieving agricultural growth objectives in their communities.