A farmers’ field day was organized on 26 August 2026 by the SWR-Ethiopia REFOOTURE-II Project, in collaboration with Jimma University through JUCAVM, at the Wanja Kersa Landscape in Gera District. The event brought together a total of 110 participants, including representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the Oromia Bureau of Agriculture (BoA), zonal and woreda agriculture offices, all 8 Common Interest Group (CIG) members, and various farmer groups active in the living lab. The field day provided a platform for stakeholders to jointly observe, discuss and learn from the customized extension activities being co-designed and tested with local farmers under the project’s Food System Innovation Platform.
As part of the field day, selected Common Interest Groups (CIGs) presented their “vision journeys” to the assembled participants. Each presentation mapped out the group’s current situation, the future they envision for their farming system and livelihoods, and the opportunities and challenges standing between the two. These presentations gave stakeholders- including MoA, BoA and zonal and woreda officials – direct insight into how farmers themselves perceive the changes introduced through ISFM, vegetable diversification and Rhodes grass forage, other intervention under progress by the project and what support or conditions they see as necessary to move from their current situation toward their long-term vision.
Participants toured three complementary field activities implemented under the project. The first was the Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) demonstration on maize (hybrid DK777), reaching 30 farmers through two models: 25 farmers each managing a 0.25 ha plot combining half the recommended inorganic fertilizer rate with compost, and 5 farmers managing a larger 0.5 ha demonstration with side-by-side comparison plots under the full recommended rate versus the integrated half-rate-plus-compost treatment. The second activity was vegetable diversification, in which 20 women farmers are producing lettuce, head cabbage, beetroot and Swiss chard for household consumption and sale, improving dietary diversity, generating income within a single season, and spreading production and market risk across the group. The third activity was Rhodes grass forage establishment, involving more than 35 farmers who have sown this drought-tolerant, deep-rooted perennial to close seasonal livestock feed gaps, protect soil against erosion, and boost manure production that feeds back into the compost used for the ISFM maize plots, reinforcing the project’s regenerative agriculture approach.
The field day underscored REFOOTURE-II’s approach of co-designing and testing locally adapted innovations with farmers, government partners and researchers, rather than delivering fixed, top-down recommendations. Lessons from the Wanja Kersa living lab are feeding directly into the Ministry of Agriculture’s national ISFM guideline revision process, while farmer-to-farmer learning continues to drive demand for planting material and compost beyond the pilot group, positioning the combined ISFM, vegetable and forage package for wider scaling.
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