Events

National Commodities Strategy of fifteen years (2016-2030) have been developed for selected commodities by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) supported by the USAID fund obtained through Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA). Barley is one of the commodities for which the research strategy of 15 years was developed. The strategy was developed and validated by stakeholders and finally adopted by the EIAR as the national research strategy. Implementation plans will subsequently be developed for every five years aligned with the five year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) of the government. Annual Plans will also be cascaded accordingly. The strategy envisions to see Ethiopia become self sufficient in food security and import substitution through development of barley technologies and become regional exporter in malt barley within the fifteen years. a national research strategy needs to be developed to lead barley research for the next fifteen years. The strategy aims at development of technologies for sustainable barley production to boost barley productivity and thereby improve the income and livelihood of farmers. It has the goal of contributing to Ethiopia’s long term vision to become a middle income economy through increased barley production and productivity with integration of different research disciplines and stakeholders in the barley sector. The strategy document will be used as a guideline and road map which will direct the research undertakings in developing reliable barley technologies for dissemination to end users in collaboration with stakeholders. There is an urgent need to generate high yielding barley varieties with desirable malting and nutritional quality with a particular focus on managing biotic and abiotic stresses. Strengthening early generation seed production is also important to accelerate the uptake of improved technologies. The research would contribute to the national effort for food security using food barley and import substitution of malting barley.The Crops Research Directorate held national annual planning meeting from February 27 to March 04, 2017. The Directorate has four research departments: the field crops department, the horticultural crops department, the Coffee and Tea research department and the Crop Protection research Departments. The review meetings were held at the Head Quarters of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.