Addis Ababa, March 6, 2020 (FBC) -The Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) has signed sub-grant agreements worth 91 million birr with eight cooperative unions and two entrepreneurs for the construction of 10 standardized mechanization service centers (MSC) across Ethiopia.
Each of the MSC owners will receive 9.1 million birr as a subgrant to cover 70% of the construction cost. The sub-grantees will cover the remaining 30% with their own matching contribution.
The design of the service centers has also been completed by the ATA and will be handed over to the center owners during the signing ceremony.
During the signing ceremony, ATA CEO Khalid Bomba underscored the importance of mechanization in enhancing productivity and harvest quality, and thereby improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.
“Mechanization has the potential to improve yields, and reduce post-harvest losses, catalyzing exponential growth in productivity and income,” he said.
The mechanization service centers will be built in the four current implementation regions of the ATA: Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray, according to a statement issued by ATA.
The centers will provide farmers paid access to agricultural mechanization services across the whole value chain—land preparation, crop protection, harvesting, threshing and transportation.
Moreover, they will also be used to train machinery operators, for maintenance of agricultural machineries, and sale of spare parts.
The Mechanization Service Center (MSC) project is a three-year pilot project implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) with the financial support of the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands through DANIDA and RNA.
Based on the outcomes of the current pilot phase, the MSC project will be scaled to other areas of the country by the MoA and regional bureaus of agriculture and rural development.