Ciara Varley, Angharad Johnston, Charlie Spillane.
Mar 17th – 19th 2025
The €7.2 million EU funded Legumes for Development (LEG4DEV) research project led by University of Galway is working with key stakeholders in Ethiopia to support government efforts to train smallholder farmers to more successfully implement climate-smart legume production. The accelerated scaling of legume production and consumption by smallholder farmers across Africa is critical for improving sustainability, health and livelihood outcomes across many of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.
From March 17th – 19th 2025, the LEG4DEV project team ran the ‘Consultative Workshop Co-Designing the Ethiopia Climate Smart Legume Production Guide’ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which brought together key legume and agriculture experts from across Ethiopia and neighbouring countries to co-design a production manual that will ultimately be used by government extension systems to train millions of smallholder farmers across Ethiopia.
The workshop was hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), with participants from government Ministries, departments, agencies, NGOs, farmers organisations, international development entities and the private sector. The LEG4DEV ‘Climate-Smart Legume Production Guide’ workshop was a partnership event of ILRI, University of Galway, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and the World Bank-funded Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) program.
The LEG4DEV project is conducting research to enable scaling of legumes in smallholder farming communities for improved sustainability, nutritional security & livelihood resilience in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia & Malawi. The LEG4DEV project is funded by the European Union’s Development Smart Innovation through its Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA) initiative. LEG4DEV is led by Professor Charles Spillane and his team from University of Galway, in partnership with Wageningen University and Research (WUR), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), University of Hohenheim, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
In Ethiopia, over 95% of agricultural production is generated by smallholder farmers. Legumes are critically important crops for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, as they offer a significant household income source, while providing a sustainable protein source. However, there is a major yield gap for legume production between what is attainable and what is achieved across all legume species grown by smallholders in Ethiopia. The yield gap arises predominantly from lack of quality inputs (seeds, bioinoculants, fertiliser, etc.) and variable legume-growing skills amongst farmers for strengthening climate resilience of their cropping systems. Hence, there is a need for a production manual that can enable farmers to better tap the benefits of legumes for climate resilience.
In her opening remarks at the workshop, Dr. Namukolo Covic, CGIAR’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa highlighted that:
“Legumes are very familiar to African food systems as they are a staple in many African countries’ diets”.
In his presentation on the LEG4DEV project at the workshop, Professor Charles Spillane, LEG4DEV Project Leader, indicated:
“Despite legumes being a strategic entry point for delivering multiple development outcomes such as productivity, sustainability, nutrition, health and livelihoods for smallholder farmers, most legume crops face systemic barriers to scaling.”
Climate scientist and LEG4DEV Affiliate Investigator Dr. Teferi Demissie from ILRI, added:
“Through its satellite remote sensing and crop modelling work, LEG4DEV can pinpoint areas suitable for legume production under current and future climatic scenarios, ensuring optimal legume yields in a changing climate.”
At the workshop, Julian Barungi, Program Officer for Policy in ASARECA gave her reflections highlighting that:
“Scaling climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies and innovations to the last mile is one of ASARECA’s core mandates. Partnerships are critical in scaling climate-smart legume production, and that is why ASARECA is partnering with the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) and LEG4DEV projects to co-design Ethiopia’s Climate-Smart Legume Production Guide.”
The workshop gathered useful insights from stakeholders working in legume production in Ethiopia. These insights will form the basis of a climate-smart legume manual for smallholder farmers in Africa. The LEG4DEV project looks forward to releasing the climate-smart legume manual in future.