376 Enabling Policies and Institutions for Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems
systems of the south – being largely neglected. However, over the last few years the
national research services have been undergoing signifcant reforms. With the for-
mation of the new Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization, a new and
broader mandate for agricultural research has begun to be defined.
In terms of extension outreach, however, the focus remains on a package
approach. This has been reinforced by the national adoption of the improved crop-
fertilizer-credit package originally promoted by the NGO SG-2000. While there
are undoubted benefits of the package under the right conditions, this does not
suit everywhere and everyone. In Wolayta the previous experiences of the WADU
programme during the 1970s provide an important lesson. When subsidized credit
was available and the infrastructural, marketing and other requirements were cov-
ered by the project, significant gains were achieved in cereal production. However,
this was at the expense of the traditional root-crop system, and when the project
withdrew in the early 1980s, cereal yields collapsed and farmers had to return to a
focus on their previous mixed strategy of combining enset with root crops and
cereals. Not surprisingly, the impact of the government’s agricultural extension
strategy in the Ethiopia study areas has been mixed, with richer farmers in the
higher rainfall areas being able to make good use of the package. However, poorer
farmers by and large have not benefited and many, following poor rainfall years,
have gone into debt (Carswell et al, 2000). The limitations of the approach, how-
ever, are now beginning to be recognized and a strategy for addressing the prob-
lems of poorer farmers in more marginal areas is being developed, with an extension
of the range of extension packages to such issues as soil and water conservation and
livestock management. The agricultural research sector in Mali largely consists of
the Institut d’Economie Rurale (IER) which, despite its name, is mainly technical
in focus. Agricultural research has paid greatest attention to the problems faced by
cotton farmers in the CMDT area and irrigated rice producers in the Office du
Niger. Recent structural reforms to the IER have led to cuts in funding and greater
reliance on a range of clients, particularly donor agencies requiring short-term
research support for their field projects. At the same time, IER has moved towards
a regional model, with greater responsibilities allocated to the five regional research
centres (of which Niono and Sikasso are part). At the regional level, consultation
committees have been set up in the hope of establishing closer communication
between researchers and farmer groups in that area. However, it is unclear how
effective these have been in influencing the direction and methods followed by
researchers. Rice and cotton farmers have thus received the lion’s share of research
expenditure. In both cases, this seems to have brought considerable improvements
in yield when combined with favourable market conditions. Much greater atten-
tion is now being paid to differences between farm households in the CMDT
region, so that the difficulties faced by small, poor households can also be
addressed.
Rainfed cereal areas, by contrast, have not been the object of concerted research
and extension work, with provision of technical advice and credit the result of
limited-duration programmes such as the Programme National de Vulgarization