Cluster based pre-scaling up of improved malt barley technologies at Kofele district of West Arsi zone, Oromia regional state, Ethiopia

Pre-scaling up of malt barley was conducted at Kofele District of West Arsi zone of Oromia regional state, to increase farmers’ capacity in production and management practices. Kofele district was selected due to its potential for barley production. One “kebele” was selected in collaboration with Kofele district agricultural and natural resource expert purposively based on potential for malt barley production and availability of land for cluster farming purpose. From selected “Kebele” 85 farmers were selected as team leader, with 410 of follower farmers and a total of 495 farmers were selected for the activity in cropping season (2018/19). An improved variety of malt barley called IBON 174/03 distributed to farmers. Ninety (90) quintals of malt barley were given for the selected farmers. 80 quintals of them were basic seed class whereas the rest 10 quintals had a pre-basic seed class. The seed covered the land size of 72 ha by the malt barley during the production year (2018/19).Training were arranged and delivered on production of malt barley, and chemical applications methods. Besides this awareness on production and packages of malt barley was also delivered to the farmers on the set of June 2019 which was sponsored by Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)-AGP2 program. Continues Monitoring and evaluation have been done at different time with different experts. Exchange visit as well as both villages based and large scale fi eld days were arranged for further promotion of malt barley to other potential areas. Malt barley is potential crop in the highlands of west Arsi Zone in general and at Kofele District in particular. The crop is used for household consumption as well as industrial crop in generating income for small holder farmers. IBON 174/03 was acceptable during fi eld day by farmers due to their disease tolerant and early maturity. After harvesting farmers like the variety IBON 174/03 due to its productivity (high yield per hectare). From one hectare the productivity of improved malt barley IBON 174/03 an average grain yields 40.2q/ha was recorded. Thus, highland farmers should use IBON 174/03 variety of malt barley in order to increase their malt barley production and generate more income for their livelihood. Further dissemination of malt barley is more expected from concerned body and addressing potential areas. Received: 12 May, 2021 Accepted: 02 June, 2021 Published: 04 June, 2021 *Corresponding author: Sintayehu Abebe, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center, Assela, P. O.Box 489, Ethiopia, E-mail:


Introduction
Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is among the cereals cultivated in Ethiopia and believed to be started cultivation more than 5.000 years and also originated in Ethiopia. It is a cool-season; rain fed crop which is dominantly cultivated in the northern and central highlands of the country [1]. Suitable barley growing regions in the country are the highlands ranging from 2300 to 3000ma.s.l [2].In Ethiopia the major food and malt barley producing Zones are in Oromia and Amhara regions (Arsi, Bale, North Shewa in Oromia; and North Gondar and West Gojjam in Amhara) [3].
According to the data obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database .The total world barley production for the year 2016 was 141,277,993 metric tons. In 2018 production was increased to 170 mln tones [4].

Market shares of barley from Africa Morocco, Ethiopia and
Algeria accounting for 87% of the total barley production .Even though Ethiopia is the second largest producers of barley and contribute more than a quarter of production a lot should be done on the value chain [5].
From 10,232,582.23 hectares of land allocated for cereal in 2017/18 production season, barley (food and malt) covered 951,993.15 ha of land from which 20,529,963.72 quintals of grain was produced with the average productivity of 21.57 q/ ha [6].

Yield comparisons of average barley productions at District, regional & national level
Comparison among the research practice (full package) at Kofele district, regional barley average yield and national average barley yield were made. From the result it was observed that the full package /practices has 40% yield advantages than the Oromia regional barley average yield and a 46.3% yield advantage than the Ethiopian national barley average yield.
The result (Figure 1) indicated that in full package utilization of input by the research recommendation showed that a yield scored an average yield of 40.2 q/ha for IBON 174/03 malt barley at study district (Kofele), 24.12 q/ha of Oromia regional average barley yield and 21.57q/ha of Ethiopian national barley average yield.
In general cluster based approach with full package input utilization demonstration was successful in terms of yield, in that the highest mean grain yield obtained from full package 40.2 q/ha was 40 % more productive than oromia regional state barley average yield (24.1q/ha) and 21.6 q/ha or more 46 % productive than the Ethiopian national barley average yield. Therefore, based on this result the researchers recommend farmers and other development practitioner to focus more on full package in cluster farming approach for scale up activity with best performed malt barley variety (IBON 174/03) has to be done Barley avarage yield at study district,at regional & at National level full package-kofele oromia region Nat.Ava

Field days
To improve farmer's awareness on the performance of the malt barley, two round fi eld days were organized. One main and one mini fi eld days were organized at national level by Kulumsa agricultural research center with fi nancial support of AGP-II program, by these fi eld days, a total of 269 participants were attend the fi eld events. Among these 150 participants were farmers (121Male and 29 Female), 36 of participants were Researchers (29 Male and 7 Female), 134 participants were Experts & others special guests (119 Male and 15 Female) were attended the fi eld days and awareness were created among stakeholders ( Table 2).
During fi eld days event farmers expressed their interest by observing how malt barley perform in its agro ecology and demand was created to scaling up in the farming system thereby to improve their household income and seed source Figure 2.

Farmers feed backs during monitoring and evaluation and fi eld days
Farmers suggested a couple of issues concerned to the technology specifi c to the merit of the malt barley variety "IBON 174/03" as showed on Table 3 that the Techinology (IBON 174/03) has a high disease resistance and high yielder than the local variety and in addition to this the seed color and leaf color are attractive as a merit of the technologies. Whereas they have been facing challenges through the production of malt barley from planting to marketing, un availability and accessibility of farm machinery such as planter, combiner harvester, and so on, market price fl uctuation. And they suggested that if these problems solved early, they would be more benefi t from the technology and improve production and productivity of malt barley.

Summery and Conclusion
The pre scaling of malt barley in west Arsi Zone was    Since mechanization is a key input like improved seeds, so emphasis should be given by the concerned body on availability and accessibility of farm machinery such as planter, combiner harvester, thresher and so on should be consider in the future because these farm machineries can contribute a lot on production and productivity.