Desta, G and Yitaferu, B and Yesigat, H and Tigabie, A and Mesfin, T and Tesfu, D and Tamene, L and Sartas, M and Agegnehu, G and Agumas, B and Teklewold, T and Tefera, E and Asfaw, D and Melesse, M B and Abera, W and Nadew, F and Nasir, A and Legesse, G and Bezabih, A and Damene, B and Rooyen, A V and Patil, M D and Zerfu, E and Low, J (2025) Scaling Delivery Strategy for Harmonized Digital Fertilizer and Agronomic Solutions (HaFAS) for Transforming Crop Production in Ethiopia. Documentation. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) & Alliance Bioversity International CIAT (Alliance), Ethiopia.
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Global Research Program - Resilient Farm and Food Systems
Research Program : East & Southern Africa
Additional Information
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Alliance of Bioversity and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Initiative, and the contributors to the Scaling Delivery Strategy acknowledge the financial support of the Gates Foundation obtained through a competitive process from the CGIAR Portfolio Performance Unit (PPU). We extend our gratitude to Dr. Murat Sartas for his contribution to developing the grant proposal and his role in shaping the strategy document. Mrs. Elizabeth Kamau, Senior Portfolio Associate in EiA played a role in facilitating the relationship with the PPU team and her follow-up of the progress. Thanks to Dr. Birru Yitaferu, Senior Soil Scientist & Researcher and Coordinator, Capacity Sharing (CapSha) Fertilizer Digital Support Tool (DST) Project in EIAR, who created space to present the strategy to wider audiences during the December 2024 workshop and for his lead in coordinating the technical team on validation data management. We also extend our thanks to the participants of the two co-design workshops in October 2024 and January 2025 and throughout the co-design process of the scaling delivery strategy. Special thanks go to HE Dr. Melese Mekonnen, State Minister of Agriculture Development and Horticulture of the Ministry of Agriculture and co-chair of the DST Coordination Platform, for his buy-in, guidance, and informing his team for their support of the process and future actions. Dr. Driba Geleti, Deputy Director General of the EIAR and co-chair of the DST Coordination Platform, for his commitment to taking the EIAR a leading role in the research support system. Mrs. Yenenesh Egu, CEO of Extension in the Ministry of Agriculture, provided her great support to the strategy development process and immediate consideration of the process as part of the agenda of the extension and capacity building technical team under the Rural Economic Development and Food Security (RED&FS) platform. We thank the CEO of Crop Development in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Esayas Lemma, for his support behind the strategy development process. The scaling strategy is realized with great interest and collaboration of NARS partners to pool the national research data for the harmonization of advisory. We appreciate the interest and active participation of key partners and their teams in the writing of the strategy and their interest in moving forward with the implementation of the strategy starting in 2025. The core writing team extends appreciation to Dr. Jan Low, agricultural economist and 2016 World Food Prize Laureate, for her guidance in the process and the facilitation role throughout the development of the strategy. We extend our thanks to Barbra Sehlule Muzata, Communication Officer at EIA, for her support in the final editing and layout of the strategy.
Abstract
The Problem: Ethiopia's agriculture sector, which employs over 70% of the population, faces significant challenges in enhancing crop productivity and maintaining soil health. Over 70% of cultivated agricultural land is used to produce cereals, using 60% of the rural workforce. Moreover, over 50% of the daily caloric intake of an average household in Ethiopia is from wheat, sorghum, and maize. Yet, there are substantial yield gaps in maize, wheat, teff, and sorghum, with actual yields far below their potential. Inefficient fertilization practices, including incorrect application rates based on blanket recommendations that do not account for variations in soil type, topography, and crop type, limit the effectiveness of fertilizer use. Soil quality has been a concern of the Ethiopian government for some time, with soil fertility research starting in the 1950s. Affordability of fertilizer has become a major issue, even among commercial farmers, since the onset of the Russian Ukrainian war. The Ethiopian government is committed to improving crop productivity, as demonstrated by their expenditure of $1.1 billion on 1.35 million metric tons of fertilizer imports in 2023. Increasing fertilizer use efficiency is central to maximizing the benefit from its fertilizer investment and minimizing the potential negative impacts of its use on the environment. In addition, as fertilizer is mostly distributed through cooperatives, fertilizer is mostly accessed by market-oriented male farmers. The government recognizes that women’s access to advisory services, in person or digital, is 41% lower than men’s. The Core Innovation: The core innovation is a digital localized agronomy and fertilizer advisory tool (LAFA) that combines and harmonizes earlier work on two separately developed digital tools, the NextGen Fertilizer Advisory System developed by the Alliance of CIAT and Bioversity, and the landscape-based Specific Fertilizer Recommendation (LANDWise) developed by ICRISAT. There are other agro-advisory services, such as climate information, lime application advice, and crop-specific soil and agronomic advice that can be potentially bundled into LAFA and/or broader Harmonized Digital Fertilizer and Agronomic Solutions (HaFAS). The HaFAS framework is modular, meaning innovations and improvements in one part of the HaFAS ecosystem do not affect other parts of the system. Through a convening harmonization meeting in September 2023 and a subsequent launch meeting in November 2023, a harmonized digital decision-support tool (DST) framework led by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and NARS (EIAR and RARIs) was adopted, which integrated multiple decision support tools (DSTs) into a comprehensive agro-advisory system, principally using digital delivery channels to service rural farmers directly or through extension personnel. The HaFAS will provide public access to data contributed by multiple organizations in a “Coalition of the Willing (CoW),” including a national soil database, remote sensing databases, and decades of findings from on-farm trials on fertilizer response for specific crops. A major component is harmonized site-specific fertilizer recommendations and bundled agro-advisories tailored to specific crop and geographic needs and adapted to variable climate scenarios, referred to as the Localized Agronomy and Fertilizer Advisory (LAFA). Extensive field validations of the LAFA have been conducted in 2024 across 1,570 farmers' fields to ensure the recommendations are practical and context specific. Data are being analyzed during the first quarter of 2025. The LAFA integrates machine learning, the QUEFTS model, extensive agronomic data, and geospatial covariates to provide optimized fertilizer recommendations. Practitioners can integrate the LAFA into user-friendly interfaces, such as APIs, dashboards, chatbots, IVR, mobile apps, web apps, and SMS, to ensure accessibility and practicality. This initiative aligns with the government's focus on Digital Agriculture Roadmap 2032 and modernized agricultural strategies on digital agriculture and extension advisory services (DAEAS). It is of note that the core now harmonized innovation, LAFA, is still under wide-scale validation in 2025 under different paths and referred to as the pre-scaling period.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Documentation) |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Global Research Program - Resilient Farm and Food Systems Research Program : East & Southern Africa |
| CRP: | UNSPECIFIED |
| Series Name: | CGIAR Scaling Delivery Strategy for Harmonized Digital Fertilizer and Agronomic Solutions (HaFAS) for Transforming Crop Production in Ethiopia |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Innovation, Harmonized fertilizer solutions, scaling delivery, scaling pathways, responsible scaling, Ethiopia |
| Subjects: | Others > Crop Yield Others > Fertilizers Others > Fertilizer Applications Others > Digital Agriculture |
| Depositing User: | Mr Nagaraju T |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Aug 2025 06:19 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Aug 2025 06:19 |
| URI: | http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/13267 |
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