Scaling for impact – Pathways to Scale in Agri-food systems: technical report

The joint venture of CIMMYT and Sidama Agricultural research Institute during the 2024 cropping season was funded by Ukama Ustawi. These demonstration and evaluation endeavors of maize and legume varieties were with remarkable achievements in the southern central rift valley of Ethiopia. To continue the assessment, we designed large scale evaluation in a participatory arrangement to draw attention of local non-governmental organizations and government stakeholders working from grass root to ministerial levels. Once, the large scale evaluation was put in place in the fields of adjacent farmers, we thought that it would be easy to create impact and to get visibility of the technologies at the level of decision makers. However, farmers still have the right to choose any combination of maize and legume varieties among the top three lists from the results of their previous year based on their production objectives. This way, we are planning to fasten the evaluation phase and will be able to raise awareness of key stakeholders on the sustainable intensification of maize-legume production systems using conservation agriculture practices.