Bridging the Gaps in Plant Health Advisory Services through Community-Based Plant Clinics: Lessons and Prospects

Increasing crop pests and diseases have become a global concern posing a serious threat to food security. Farmers are in dire need o f timely, relevant and practical advisory services that can help them mitigate such challenges. There are apparent gaps and limitations in conventional extension services in delivering effective advisory service on plant health problems. Realizing such shortfalls, many have started advocating for a more responsive and demand-driven approach. Plant wise community-based plant clinics (CBPC) are one such innovative and complementary tool. Based on the results achieved in other countries, CBPCs were piloted in Ethiopia in 2013. Today, over 100 CBPCs operate and provide advice on plant health in Oromia, Tigray, Amhara and SNNP regions. The approach has demonstrated having notable potential to effectively and timely reach out to farmers with appropriate and practical advice on plant health problems. In Ethiopia unique opportunities and fertile ground prevail to effectively implement, scale up, institutionalize and sustain the initiative. These include presence o f regional Plant Health Clinics, Farmer Training Centres, large number o f frontline extension staff, decentralized structures, various agricultural development projects/programmes and pro-agriculture development policy. This paper presents experiences and lessons in implementing CBPCs in Ethiopia, the merits and contributions o f the approach, prospects, challenges and future areas o f focus. Pest Managment Journal of Ethiopia , Vol. 20 (2017): Pest Managemernt Journal of Ethiopia