Message from DG

Agriculture is the economic backbone of the Amhara region, accounting for 54% of the economy and employing 90% of the labor force, and significantly influencing the regional gross domestic product. Though agriculture plays a major role in the region's economy in any measure, the subsistence farming system does not guarantee food self-sufficiency. Other factors contributing to this include low input use, problems with soil fertility, drought, traditional farming practices, low investment in agricultural machinery, poor infrastructure, insufficient incentive programs, low uptake of improved technologies, the market, and poor attitude of educated manpower to engage in agriculture.

To achieve the above bottleneck problems on agricultural development, the Amhara regional agricultural Research institute (ARARI) has established with the regional government body by decree No. 48/1992 with the following mandates: 1) to generate and adapt agricultural technologies that focus on the agricultural development strategy of the Region, devise a working strategy for the multiplication of some of these technologies, conduct researches on the traditional agricultural methods and develop those of which are beneficial 2). To coordinate research activities of agricultural research centers encourage, higher learning Institutes and other related organization to give attention to agricultural researches provide assistance and publicize agricultural research results to be utilized by the end users 3) build up a research capacity and establish a system that will make the region’s agricultural research activities efficient, effective, demand driven and focusing on solving core agricultural problems.

The institute has developed numerous demand driven technologies in field crops, horticulture, forestry, soil fertility management, irrigation and livestock. The institute has released 173 crop varieties, which have high yield potential, pest resistance, and are widely adaptable in both the region and the country as a whole. Moreover, technologies on integrated pest management and agronomic practices were developed, recommended, demonstrated and disseminated through mainstream Medias, publications and trainings. In addition, technologies for livestock to improve yield of milk, meat, egg, and market values have been highly improved, demonstrated, and disseminated in various ways. Numerous technologies, including soil fertility management, irrigation, and water harvesting, are developed, recommended, demonstrated, and disseminated to end users.

To keep up with the rapidly expanding population and its demands, high tech and critical thinking will soon overtake conventional research methods. The goal is not only to protect the subsistence food security of the food insecure population, but also to meet the expanding demands of the industries for high-value crops such as sesame, soybean, mung bean, coffee meat, milk resin, and so forth.