General Overview

Livestock research plays a significant role in improving livestock productivity, quality production, and competency. Recognizing this, the government of Ethiopia supports the sector's entire political economy. To this end, Tigray Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) is conducting livestock research to provide users with improved livestock technologies and practices, thereby enhancing sector productivity across different production systems.

For the last two decades, TARI’s livestock directorate, organized in seven research centers, has been undertaken numerous livestock research activities. These activities focus on addressing the region's various opportunities (potentials), meeting the demands of different value chain actors, and overcoming constraints hindering livestock development. Despite limitations in resources (material, financial, and human), previous livestock research efforts have undeniably contributed many problem-solving technologies.

General Objectives

The strategic objective of regional livestock research is to improve food security, nutrition, and income of beneficiaries by enhancing animal production and productivity through:

• Generating/adapting technologies (in quality and quantity) that can sustainably improve animal production and productivity.
• Demonstrating and popularizing improved technologies and facilitating technology transfer to end users.
• Multiplying and delivering improved technologies and enhancing their efficiency in quality and quantity.
• Supporting policymakers by providing research-based information, including technical, institutional, and policy recommendations for decision-making.

Research Thematic Areas

• Generating and introducing market-oriented technologies and creating market linkages.
• Developing technologies resilient to climate change.
• Creating technologies addressing the needs of different niches and farming systems (urban agriculture, drought/frost-affected areas, etc.).
• Addressing a wider range of end users, such as women, investors, youth associations, agro-processors, exporters, etc.
• Enhancing productivity (quantity/quality) technologies and supporting export market efficiency.
• Developing import substitution technologies used as inputs for agri-business/agro-industry.
• Ensuring food and nutrition security through appropriate technologies.
• Ensuring safety and shelf life of animal-sourced foods like meat, milk, eggs, honey, skin, and hide (public health and safety).
• Conserving indigenous breeds and natural resources through targeted technologies.
• Considering public health and safety in technology development.
• Researching commodities with better economic value.
• Supporting policymakers with research-based scientific information to address specific problems.

Research Programs

Under the livestock research sector, the following eleven program/commodity areas are identified:

Commodity Programs

I. Ruminants

• Cattle (meat/milk)
• Sheep and Goat (mainly meat)

II. Non-Ruminants

• Poultry (Meat and Egg) and Pack Animals
• Fisheries and Aquaculture
• Apiculture/Bee and Hive Products (Honey, Wax, Venom, Propolis)

III. Cross-Cutting (Non-Commodity Programs)

• Genetic Improvement
• Feed and Nutrition
• Natural Grazing Resources
• Animal Health
• Insect Rearing Unit (Black Soldier Fly, House Fly, Sericulture, etc.)

Livestock Research Focus across Centers

Note: ARC = Agricultural Research Center

Structural Organization and Manpower

Currently, the directorate has 83, of which 74 are researchers, 9 technical assistances directly participating in research activities.

Human Resources (Skilled Manpower)

Goals

Contribution to Achieving GTP Goals

• Utilizing the Livestock Development Master Plan as a strategic document.
• Considering the Country Livestock Research Strategy and cascading the objectives to our region.

Research Approach

• Participatory: Ensuring the involvement of all stakeholders from problem appraisal to the execution of research projects and dissemination of research outputs.
• Involving Farmers’ Research Groups (FRGs).
• Implementing a cluster-based production system.
• Utilizing advanced biotechnology tools.
• Employing resource-sharing codes.
• Networking with national and international research centers.

Collaborations with Other Institutions

• The Livestock Research Directorate has been involved in collaborative activities with different governmental and non-governmental institutions both within and outside the country towards achieving its mandate. Among institutions collaborated with are:

Livestock Research Based Center of Excellence

Contact information

TESFAY HAGOS HAILE (PhD.)

Livestock Research Directorate Director@Tigray Agricultural Research Institute (TARI)

Senior Researcher in Animal Nutrition and Feed Science

Official Email: tesfayhh3@tari.gov.et

Optional Email: eytesfay@yahoo.com

Mobile Number.+251-967041781/970089917

P.O.Box: 495

Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia

General Background

The agriculture sector in Tigray plays a central role and holds great potential to save lives and contribute to livelihoods, support rural households, and provide decent employment. From this, the crop sub-sector plays an important role in Tigray economic development as a major source of income, provides food and nutritional security, employment opportunity, and saves on foreign exchange expenditure through import substitution. Currently, the annual crop production stands at more than 2 million tons of food crops and 36,441.61 tons of horticultural crops from nearly 954522.53 ha (74% of the cultivated land), all supporting 1,818,960 households. The crops research directorate, in this regard, is mandated to conduct, promote, streamline, co-ordinate and regulate research in all agro-ecologies of Tigray, considering all crops of economic importance with the objective to generate, multiply and disseminate crop information, technologies, knowledge, and practices to accelerate productivity, value addition, and enhancement of competitiveness for meeting the local demand and beyond so as to improve the livelihoods. 

Research Centers Engaging in Crops Research

Currently, six agricultural research centers are engaging in research on various crops to varied extent and representing different agro-ecologies of Tigray.

Human Resources

Research Thematic Areas

• Improving food and nutrition security
  • • Crop productivity and quality

• Climate change and variability
  • • Climate smart/resilient agriculture
    • Improve early warning system for crop productivity
    • Utilization of weather information in crop packages
• Agro-processing and value addition
  • • Commodity specialization
    • Enhancing agro-industry competitiveness
• Export commodities and commercialization
  • • Introducing and improving productivity of exportable agricultural commodities
    • Promoting commercialization of smallholder agriculture
    • Enhancing quality outputs
• Job creation and cross cutting issues
  • • Introducing income generating commodities
    • Empowering women and youth in agriculture
    • Participation in crop technology development and transfer
• Promoting urban agriculture

Research Setup

In order to contribute significantly to the economic development, crop directorate is structured into six research programs as outlined below.

1. Cereal crops research
2. Pulse crops research
3. Oil and fibre crops research
4. Horticultural crops research
5. Plant biotechnology research
6. Plant protection research

Strategic Intervention

• Genetic improvement
• Crop agronomy and physiology
• Crop protection
• Plant tissue culture 
• Source seed multiplication
• Technology promotion
• Urban agriculture
• Advisory  and capacity building

Beneficiary and Stakeholders

• Farmers
• Investors
• Bureau of Agriculture
• Bureau of finance and economic development
• Agro-industries
• Seed enterprises
• Cooperatives and unions
• Small and micro enterprises
• Higher learning institutions
• Ethiopian institute of agricultural research (EIAR)
• Institute of biodiversity conservation (IBC)
• Agricultural transformation institute (ATI)
• Regional research institutes  (RARIs)
• Forestry and  environmental protection research institute
• CGIAR centers (CIMMYT, ICARDA, ICRAF, ICRISAT, CIP, ILRI,)
• Non-governmental organizations (FSRP, ICRC, FAO, WFP, World Vision Australia, GIZ, Irish Aid, BENEFIT, IFAD)

Research Output

• Twenty-four varieties of different crops have been released
• Significant number of crop technologies were recommended through adaptation from national and international sources 
• Crop agronomic technologies and practices that increase crop productivity were developed and recommended 
• Integrated pest management technologies and practices were developed and recommended 
• Rejuvenation of germplasm and maintenance of breeder seed of improved varieties that are under production 
• Early generation seeds (breeder and pre-basic) multiplication 
• Development of secondary metabolites and multiplication of disease-free potato, sweet potato, papaya, and mushroom
• Promotion of improved technologies  and practices

• Coordination of crops research regionally (Tigray)

Get In Touch

Teklay Abebe (Ph.D.)

Senior Researcher

Email: teklayabebe6@gmail.com

Cell phone: 0911905589

General Background

The Socioeconomics and Extension Research Directorate (SEERD) is one of the five research directorates  under Tigray Agricultural Research Institute. It is organized into two sub-programs. The first sub-program (casèteam) is socioeconomic research wing that mainly focuses on conducting different studies related to the farming systems, agricultural opportunities and challenges, institutions and their contributions to the agricultural development, etc and generate evidence and information that is useful for further investigation/research, development interventions and policy making. The second sub-program is the agricultural extension research. This sub-program ďeals with promoting the generated agricultural technologies and facilitating transfer of technologies, knowledge and information to the end users via the formal extension system.
The research directorate is also responsible to coordinate multistakeholder forums that are crucial to foster integration and partnership among all concerned stakeholders in the agriculture sector. It jointly works with different research and development actors on the identification and prioritization of çritical economic, social, natural, institutional, and agricultural policy relateď bottlenecks of the agricultural sector and to provide alternative research-based solutions. It also empower farmers and grassroots practitioners to actively participate in the technology development process.

The directorate currently has 25 staff members, with 20 of them being MSc holders (4 women) and 5 BSc graduates working at 8 research centers in the region.
Thematic (research) areas

• Technology promotion (demonstration, pre-extension popularization and Scaling) 
• Adoption and impact study
• Gender analysis  
• Agricultural policy and institutional analysis 
• Market research/value chain analysis 
• Extension system analysis 
• Panel data development and analysis: 
• Analysis of natural and environmental resources economics
• production constraints analysis 

Focus areas of the directorate

• Improve land, livestock and labor productivity
• Food and nutrition security 
• Market oriented commodities and import substitution
• Improve decision making power based on scientific evidences 
• Participatory research approach 
• Empower women and landless youth 
• Reduce post-harvest loss and human drudgery
• Reduce deforestation
• Transforming conventional agricultural practices
• Organizing, publishing and disseminating research findings

A significant outreach of improved agricultural technologies in crops, livestock, natural resource, and mechanization technologies was revealed by the research directorate in collaboration with different partners and supporters. During the past years, the research results have been compiled in the form of research papers and extension materials and distributed to a wider audience. In the last ten years, 53 research papers in proceedings and 45 journal articles have been published. The research directorate has made the results of the research publicly available on social media and local and national programs.

General Background

Natural Resources Research Directorate (NRRD) is one of the five research directorates of Tigray Agricultural Research Institute (TARI). The directorate has six pool and two specialized (soil) research centers distributed in different zones and agro-ecologies of Tigray. It is mainly affianced in execution of different researches in the fields of forest, soil, water and wild life resources as well as on the environment and climate change. Furthermore, the directorate provides soil & water laboratory and meteorological services to beneficiaries and stakeholders. The directorate has experience on technology generation, adaptation, demonstration, multiplication, capacity buildings and establishment of partnerships and fund raising.

Goal 
To contribute to the region`s long term policy, strategy and planned objectives through generation and delivery of improved natural resources management technologies and innovations.

Research thematic areas 

• Irrigation and drainage engineering and water resources management research
• Soil and water conservation and watershed management research
• Forestry, agroforestry and wild life management research
• Geospatial research
• Agro-meteorology research and services 
• Soil fertility and health management research
• Soil resources survey and digitizing research
• Soil microbiology research
• Analytical soil laboratory services

Manpower of NRRD

General Background

Agricultural Mechanization and Rural Energy Research Directorate is one of the five research Directorates under Tigray Agricultural Research Institute (TARI). The research directorate is mainly engaged in development-oriented research activities of different agricultural machineries and implements, post-harvest and feed processing technologies, renewable and biomass energy appliances.

Mission

The Directorate is given a mission to improve agricultural production and productivity, improve post harvest product handling and improve access for least cost energy in the rural Tigray through undertaking demand driven and participatory research on agricultural mechanization, post-harvest and feed processing technologies and renewable energy technologies.

Vision

• To see better and sustainable living standards of communities living in Tigray regional state through use of modern agricultural technologies.

Thematic (research) areas

• Pre harvest and harvest agricultural implements
• Post-harvest machineries and agro processing  sciences
•  Rural transportation
• Irrigation and water pump
• Biomass and renewable energy

Research pillar of the directorate

• Improve land and labor productivity
• Reduce post-harvest loss and human drudgery
• Reduce deforestation
• Import substitution
• Transforming conventional agricultural practices
• Create new job for land less youths
• Empower women