CropLife Africa Middle East was a consortium partner with SNV Ethiopia (Netherlands development organization) in Phase (I) of the Horti-LIFE project which ended in June 2019. SNV decided on a Horti-LIFE Phase (II) which includes the full support of CropLife Ethiopia by setting up a Project Management Unit (PMU) within the CropLife Ethiopia national association. In August 2019, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the partnership agreement covering the support of SNV- Horti-LIFE and operational costs of the PMU for Spray Service Providers (SSPs) & Kebele Pesticide Agents (KPAs) was signed between the two parties in the presence of the CLAME team. The term of this agreement extends from August 2019 to June 2023,.
The MoU defines the roles and responsibilities of both parties and one of the core responsibilities of CropLife Ethiopia is to ensure that its member companies continue with the commitment to avail their staff for the training of 300 SSPs and 150 KPAs.
By closely working with the project team of SNV, training programs started to be rolled out as per the workplan, by trainers from CropLife Ethiopia and member companies in the project regions. In February 2020, four trainings were planned and executed in the Amhara region at two sites where a total of 55 SSPs/KPAs successfully graduated after an intensive four days training. SNV fully equipped the SSPs and KPAs with the required PPE, knapsack sprayers, record logbook and technical manual.
The SNV training will continue on 16 March 2020 in the Tigray region where 36 SSPs/KPAs will be trained. Coincidently, CropLife Ethiopia is also running an awareness creation exercise in 4 regions and 11 woredas under the USAID funded, Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain Activities (FTFE-VCA) project. Areas to be followed will be by the selection of SSPs, training, provision of equipment, monitoring and evaluation activities. CropLife Ethiopia is the project subcontractor whereby an additional 165 SSPs will join the network in the country.
It is the vision and commitment of CropLife Ethiopia to continue serving the smallholder farming communities by encouraging them to engage in the safe and responsible use of improved inputs with due diligence to human health and environmental safety.