N2Africa is a project that aims to improve nitrogen fixation to benefit smallholder farmers in Africa. It discusses the key achievements, challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned from ACOS Ethiopia's grain legume sourcing and export marketing experiences. Some of the key achievements include developing new legume varieties for export markets in partnership with EIAR, introducing contract farming, and exporting over 170,000 metric tons of various beans and crops. However, challenges include inadequate and low quality supply, a lack of price information, and insect damage reducing quality. Moving forward, opportunities exist in improving collection, sorting, and supplying a range of grains to international markets due to growing global demand and Ethiopia's geographic position.

1. N2Africa - Putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa
Successes, Lessons and Challenges
from Grain Legume Sourcing, and
Export Marketing: Experiences from
ACOS Ethiopia
Introduction
ILRI-N2Africa
Box 5689 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ● +251 11617 2200/25/33/35
ilri.org ● n2africa.org ● n2africa-Ethiopia.wikispaces.com
N2Africa project is funded by BMGF
Key achievements
• In partnership with EIAR, legume varieties fulfilling export market
developed
 ACOS Dube (chickpea), ACOS Keyo (dark red kidney bean) and
Adzuki bean developed through such partnership
• Introduced “Contract Farming” with Farmer’s Cooperative Unions, public
and private commercial farms for multiplication of adapted varieties for
commercial production
• Product sourcing is done mainly from ECX, farmer’s cooperative unions,
private commercial farms and grain traders
• Exported more than 170,000 Mt of white pea beans, Small red beans,
DRK, Pinto beans, Cream beans, Chickpeas and oil crops
• International market for other bean varieties than the WPB and small
red beans (cream beans and black beans)
• Facilitation of market link between Ethiopian farmer’s cooperative
unions with foreign buyers
• Awareness creation on the quality of export items among farmer’s
cooperative union leaders, model farmers, grain traders, brokers, etc.
• ACOS Ethiopia is mainly engaged on processing and exporting of dry
beans
• Legume food processing industries, in particular, the Baked Bean
Producers of the UK and European Countries are major customers
 With exporting as far as to Puerto Rico, Russia, India, the Middle
East, Northern and South Africa
• Major national partnership include farmer’s cooperative unions, public
and private commercial farms, EIAR, HwU, HU, ILRI, NGOs, MBI and
pulse processing and exporting companies
• Inadequate supply of required quantity and quality of grain legumes
(decreased sizes of WPB)
• Lack of information on price of grains at international level and local
markets
• Coordination of grain sourcing and marketing is not in harmony
 During harvest period many unknown actors come onto the scene
 Lack of some cohesiveness
• High local market price for grain legumes
• Insect damage both at field and heavy infestation in warehouses, and
insecticide contamination
• Lack of mechanism for traceability of products
• Processed legume food distribution outlet is not yet developed
• The partnership’s activity has to flow smoothly until the end is reached
Challenges
• Increased capability of collecting, cleaning, sorting, grading,
bagging, labeling and supplying a range of grain legumes to
different international markets
• High demand of pulse grains globally
• Ethiopia’s geographic location for Europe and Asiatic countries
• Advantage of harvesting period
Opportunities
• Improve business relationship
• Improve access to inputs supply for increased production
• The concept of partnership agreement should be developed
among actors involved in the value chain
Mekonnen Kebede and Girma Dentamo, ACOS Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Way forward
• Lag of information flow, especially to partners on critical field
condition, will harm collaboration and performance
• Need for contractual agreement enforcement with few partners
• Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) in grain products sourcing and
marketing is a good strategy
Lessons Learned
This document is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International Licence. May 2017