Ethiopia's agricultural productivity, both for field crops and vegetables, is not living up to its potential. Besides factors related to the soil, there is concern about the quality of the starting material like seeds and seedlings as well as crop establishment after sowing. Seed quality is often poor and limited seed enhancement is currently practiced by the farmers. This project will set up a central project organization with a technical team to set up a large scale promotion and demonstration programme of seven years.The objective of the proposed project is to test and disseminate promising seed technologies focussing on teff, maize, sorghum, wheat, barley and sesame.Activities are:• Development and testing of product-service combinations.• Training of 1,000 key sector specialists.• Organisation of 1,000 full cycle crop demonstrations under farmer conditions.• Awareness campaigns inviting 200,000 farmers.• Business analysis of each product-service combination.• Development of business plans for each partner.The project is strongly based in the ISSD (Integrated Seed Sector Development) programme Ethiopia. The ISSD programme aims to strengthen the development of a vibrant and market-oriented seed sector in the country, where quality seed of superior varieties is available and affordable for a large number of farmers.

This project will improve the productivity of sorghum, teff, wheat, barley, maize and sesame by adapted technologies for seed improvement and crop establishment reaching 100,000 farmers and resulting in a commercially successful business.