National workshop to gather feedback on Ethiopia's LSC hub

Date: February 16, 2024    Author: Thaïsa van der Woude (ISRIC)

Twenty-two participants provided feedback on Ethiopia’s LSC hub prototype for further improvement and development during a national workshop in Adama, Ethiopia

Adama, Ethiopia: On 13-14 February 2024, the Land, Soil, and Crop Information Services (LSC-IS) to support the Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) project held a national workshop in Adama, Ethiopia, to gather feedback on Ethiopia’s LSC hub.

Hosted by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), the workshop, coordinated by the International Livestock Research Institute, as the leader of the work package four, and supported by ISRIC - World Soil Information, World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), brought together national users of land soil crop (LSC) information hubs in Ethiopia’s agricultural knowledge and innovation system (AKIS).

Participants included stakeholders from the national level, Adami Tulu Jido Kombollcha district, and Basona Werena district stakeholders who participated in the 2023 work package two workshop, as well as other stakeholders involved in land, soil, and crop information and the development of agriculture digital-based information systems.

As the LSC information hub in Ethiopia is in the early stages of development, the participants were shown the LSC information hubs that have already been developed for Kenya and Rwanda. The workshop aimed to understand whether this would be useful for Ethiopia and for continuing its development process with EIAR. In addition, the objectives of the national workshop were to:

1. Introduce, familiarise, and train LSC information users who work with and benefit from land, soil, and crop information.
2. Collect feedback from LSC information users to improve the functionality and user-friendliness of the LSC Hub.

During the first day of the workshop, EIAR’s Dr. Girma Mamo, Director, Climate, Geospatial and Biometrics Research Directorate, and Dr. Birru Yitaferu, Director of Soil and Water Research, delivered the opening speech, after which the participants shared their expectations, questions, and comments. Thereafter, Dr. John Recha, Research Scientist, Climate-Smart Agriculture and Policy from ILRI, presented an overview of the LSC project and the results of the user need assessment, which served as the basis for developing the LSC hub prototype. Dr. Melkamu Beyene from Acatech Technology provided insights on the Ethiopian National AgData hub, followed by a presentation on integrating the EIAR’s database system with the LSC hub by Gezahegn Tolosa, EIAR’s ICT Director. Thaïsa van der Woude, Project Coordinator from ISRIC, presented the development process of the LSC hub prototype. The rest of the day focused on introducing and familiarising stakeholders with the LSC hub prototype and gathering feedback to improve it.

During the second day of the workshop, Blaise Amony, Program Officer- Capacity Development from ASARECA, led the discussion on positives and recommendations for the workshop, and Thaïsa van der Woude facilitated a recap session on the LSC hub prototype functionalities. The goal of the second day of the workshop was to show the added value of the LSC hub, presented by Dr. Ermias Betemariam, ICRAF’s Land Health Scientist, and how the stakeholders can use the LSC hub for their benefit, and what information was still missing in the LSC hub. A keynote speech was provided by Andre Kooiman, ISRIC’s Senior Specialist in Sustainable Land Management.

The LSC-IS work is funded by the European Union’’s Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA) program, co-funded by the EU and The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a contribution from ISRIC-World Soil Information. Read more.