The Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University has participated in a national Agricultural Exhibition and Trade Fair organized by USAID Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain Activity from 27th to 28th Jan.2017 in Amhara National Regional State, West Gojjam Administrative Zone, Finote Selam town. The objective of the trade fair was to create market linkages among different institutions working on agricultural technology development and marketing. The institute introduces different agricultural technologies for more than 8000 farmers gathered from four Woredas and 43 Kebeles.
Some of the technologies displayed during the two day event includes:
- Solar bubble dryer (from Feed the future innovation lab for the reduction of postharvest loss, supported by USAID)
- Water lifting technologies including Majipump (Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium, Ethiopia, USAID)
- Maize Sheller machines: Different size and capacity maize sellers developed and copied by the Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium, Ethiopia, was introduced to the farmers and farmer unions
- Berken plow that can be fitted to the ‘mofer’ of the traditional ox-drawn plow, and therefore are easily adopted by farmers. This tool makes a U-shaped furrow which is good for water infiltration and root growth and avoids cross-plowing. The technologies improves the infiltration by breaking flow restrictive layers, reduce runoff and soil loss and increase maize yield compared to conventional till.
- Full stop-Wetting Front Detector for irrigation water management: The technology provides support on how much to irrigate. For irrigators who tend to under irrigate, the use of the tool results in higher water amounts applied throughout the season. On the other hand for farmers who tend to over irrigate the use of the tool leads to reductions in irrigation water applied. Throughout the ILSSI testing examples of under and over irrigation were shown.
- Conservation agriculture (CA) with drip irrigation system: Conservation agriculture is an application of minimum till, mulching and crop rotation. With application of water using drip, the CA resulted in the reduction of water applied and increased yield.
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