Vegetables value chain development in Fogera district: experiences from IPMS project interventions

Onion and tomato are among the largest production and highly commercialized vegetable crops in the region. In Fogera district, regardless of the existence of year round rivers and high ground water availability to supplement irrigation, favorable climate and soil type, the productivity and gross production of vegetables is low. This low production is attributed to shortage of input supply, lack of skills, and price collapse during peak harvest periods. With the aim of enhancing vegetable production through improving linkages among multi-stakeholders and developing market linkages to improve livelihood of vegetable producers, the district stakeholders/IPMS introduced new high yielding varieties, onion seed production system and staggered planting production techniques. These stakeholders also created onion seed producers’ platform, worked on onion market linkages, introduced better management skills and also strengthened linkages among actors along the value chain. The combined effects of all these interventions resulted in a tripling of the irrigated vegetable area from 2005 to 2008, and an onion seed production system by entrepreneurial farmers which not only services Fogera itself but also sells seeds to other districts. The introduction of staggered production in tomato prevented market price deterioration and improved volume of production where as market network for onion bulb created high volume of absorption outside the district. Onion seed certification improves confidence and traceability and creates marketing outside the district and the region. Ensuring seed producers’ certification was a complex process which required the involvement and commitment of many stakeholders, including intensive technical support and follow up from input to post harvest handling and marketing. Despite all these hurdles, onion seed production proved to be a lucrative business. While significant progress has been made by using the value chain development approach, challenges/opportunities remain and/or are emerging which require continuous responses from the actors involved. In particular, more attention needs to be paid to improvement of agronomic and irrigation practices, since yields observed for the major vegetable crops are well below their potential. Also more attention/ knowledge is required on appropriate storage technologies as well as a nationwide market intelligence system.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Gebey, T., Berhe, Kahsay, Hoekstra, Dirk
Format:	Report biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	International Livestock Research Institute 2010-03-15
Online Access:	https://hdl.handle.net/10568/808
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