The objective of this research was to scrutinize factors that impeded research-farmer relationship in the context of agricultural innovation system from researchers' perspective in Ethiopia. The research design used for this study was qualitative research approach. Respondents were interviewed using a snowball sampling technique. Data were collected primarily using in-depth interview, documents and analysed descriptively using the principle of grounded theory. The study revealed that research-farmer relationship was affected by resource scarcity and inefficient use; feebleness of the extension system; narrow vision among researchers and farmers; inadequate preparedness to share knowledge; weak coordination among the various actors; poor attention for research; inefficient use of research results; lack of attractive rewarding system and farmers' attitude for research and researchers. The conclusion is that the number of researchers to conduct demand-driven research was insufficient. Moreover, the scarce resources were inefficiently used by the various stakeholders conducting research that is less relevant to farmers need. The extension system of the country did not encourage researchers to work with farmers. The recommendations from the research is that the government of the country can take actions that can improve the relationship of researchers with farmers by employing knowledgeable, skilful, dedicated, concerned and committed people in knowledge institutes; allocating sufficient budget for research and changing the linear extension system to agricultural innovation system.

Agriculture is one of the key drivers of Ethiopia’s long-term development and food security. It supports 85% of the total population, constitutes 43% of GDP and 80% of export value. For the country to reach middle-income prestige by 2025 and make significant inroads against food insecurity, strategic choices and concerted and strategic investments in agricultural sector are vigorous. The government of Ethiopia has put maximum efforts to increase agricultural output. However, increments in agricultural production and productivity, the expected benefits, have not been achieved yet. Low agricultural production and productivity is the major cause of food insecurity in the country emanating from lack of suitable technologies for beneficiaries, low adoption of agricultural innovations, and lack of active participation of farmers in agricultural research. Therefore, this study examines critical factors that hinder farmers’ participation in agricultural research in Ethiopia. A total sample size of 39 respondents comprising 16 farmers, 14 researchers and 9 development agents were interviewed purposively based on snowball sampling technique. Qualitative research design was used in this research. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and observations and analysed descriptively. The empirical results reveal that lack of sufficient time, bad experiences in the past, perception of farmers’ for researchers, farmer’s attitude for research, the type of research, lack of stakeholder’s willingness to learn from one another, loose integration of indigenous and scientific knowledge and insignificant change of new technologies to material wealth critically hindered farmer’s participation in agricultural research to bring innovation in agriculture. Innovation in agriculture comes from the interaction of the different actors that are working in agriculture since each actor brings their own knowledge and results in social learning. Insignificant innovation in agricultural research results in food insecurity in the country.

Teff is one of the most important crops for farm income and food security in Ethiopia. Despite the importance of teff in Ethiopia, yields are remarkably low mainly due to low adoption of improved agricultural technologies. Technical knowledge is not only valuable as an outcome impact indicator but could also serve as a reasonably reliable predictor of the adoption of management practices, particularly for crops and technologies where there is a relatively long-time lag between adoption and impact. Therefore, this study was carried out during 2016-17 to assess the knowledge of farmers on improved production practices of teff. The study used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Cross sectional survey research design was employed to collect data. Chaliya district was purposively selected because this district has only 46 ha under improved practices out of 6815 ha of land under teff cultivation, which is very low when compared with the other 18 districts of West Shoa zone. By using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) and random sampling technique, 239 respondents were selected from the eight villages. The data were collected using well-structured interview schedule, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistical tests. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents had no knowledge on row planting/ sowing, transplanting, stages of application of Urea, optimum depth at which fertilizer is to be applied and quantity of Urea to be applied at each stage. Therefore, it is very much imperative to educate the farmers on row planting, transplanting and urea application. The extension agency must formulate the extension messages on the knowledge component of row planting, transplanting and fertilizer application while transferring the know-how.

Information is power only when used and applied. Farm Management Information Systems in agriculture have evolved from simple farm recordkeeping into sophisticated and complex systems to support production management. African agriculture is largely traditional and practised by smallholders and pastoralists, predominantly rain-fed, has low-yielding production, and lacks access to critical information, market facilitation, and financial intermediation services. The role that Information Communication Technologies (ICT) can play in addressing these challenges is increasing. Mobile technology, on the other hand, is increasingly being adopted as the technology of choice for delivery of ICT services and solutions. New applications present an opportunity like no other to revolutionize life for farmers. The mobile is not only a communication tool, in future, it will be an important agricultural tool for the farmers. Most mobile applications focus on improving agriculture and have a wide range of functions, such as providing market information, increasing access to extension services, and facilitating market links. For extension workers, it is an additional tool in their kit in the technology transfer. For scientists, it acts as a readily available reference on demand and for students in agriculture, it acts as a learning tool. Mobile application for pest and disease management of crops is an application that allows farmers to identify pests and diseases using their mobile phones and provides remedial measures is the latest addition to using modern digital tools to benefit smallholder farmers. Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in Sub-Saharan Africa. Wheat is the 4 th important cereal crop in the country. Although Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is reliant on foreign wheat imports to satisfy its annual domestic demand. Considering its importance, and also in recent years the crop was affected by rust disease and incurred significant economic loss, wheat crop was selected for this pilot study. Keeping this in to consideration, the mobile application namely, m-WHEAT, was developed, as a pests and diseases diagnostic tool for major pests and diseases of Wheat crop in Ethiopia. The application is developed using android with the help of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for encoding documents in machine-readable form and includes java development tools. The XML based user interface with Java programming in Android SDK is developed to present pests and diseases of wheat and its control measures.