Farmer Sisay Mekasha and his wife, Mrs. Dency Abdi, who are engaged in barley farming in Arise Zone, Kwanab District, have been engaged in the production of beer barley for Asela Malt Factory for seven years. According to Ato Sisay, Heineken Ethiopia came to their zone and after receiving training to use the best seeds and update their farming operations, they more than doubled the 25 quintals per hectare they had previously obtained. Adding that the weather favored his best seed and caused them to gather a better harvest.
Ato Sisay, not only did they get 60 to 70 quintals of beer barley per hectare for the past seven years, but the fact that their market problems were solved by Heineken enabled them to improve their lives and educate their children better. The award-winning farmer Ato Sisay, who says, “Our coffee is our barley,” he confidently says, ‘We will soon export our barley to foreign countries and earn foreign currency like coffee.’
Merga Gemeda, a resident of Shashemene District, Mursa Kebele, West Arusi Zone, is another award-winning farmer for the best seed offered by Heineken Ethiopia. He say that they are successful farmers because they produce beer barley with the help of herbicide and pesticide training.
According to Ato Merga, with the help of training and continuous monitoring by agricultural experts, they have been able to increase the amount of beer barley they get per hectare. “Seeing is believing,” said Ato Merga, showing the barley field where he has to preparing to harvest not less than 70 quintal crop recently. Ato Merga, being a model farmer, has been trained and has started to share his experience with other farmers’ associations, including the use of herbicides and row sowing.
Since Ethiopia was not able to produce enough barley for beer production, the Asela and Gondar malt factories, which were the only ones for years, imported large amounts of barley from abroad. In order to avoid this foreign exchange, Heineken Ethiopia has designed and implemented a project to replace beer barley in the country with the farmers of barley. Malt factories have also increased from two to four.
Heineken Ethiopia under the principle of “Going Local, Growing with Ethiopia” in embracing the 70,000 organized barley farmers in Aris, Bale and Shewa, improved varieties of barley suitable for Ethiopia’s climate and the best seeds, training, By providing herbicides and pesticides, it was possible to increase barley production from 2.4 tons to 4 tons only from 2016 to 2022 by satisfying the demand for barley in Ethiopia. Following this, Heineken Ethiopia’s supply chain manager, Mr. Anteneh Metku,said that 788 million dollars (32 billion birr) of foreign currency get back, which was supposed to be spent on the purchase of barley.
Ato Antenh and Heineken staff
Ato Anteneh, who recalled that before the project started, Heineken Ethiopia used to get only 25 percent of the barley used for the factory from the country, explained that because he was able to work closely with the barley producing farmers, now up to 80 percent of the factory’s needs can be obtained from the local producing farmers.
The official mentioned that the government has announced that Ethiopia will supply wheat to the foreign market in the next fiscal year and we have a plan to meet the demand for beer barley entirely from domestic production and avoid imported barley.
Heineken has more than 160 factories in 70 countries around the world, and in more than 200 best practice competitions held between the factories, the process of replacing beer barley with local production was successful. Based on this, Heineken Ethiopia to the farmers who contributed to this result; Agricultural experts, held a recognition and award program for agricultural extension workers and input providers.
The farmers and agricultural experts who produced up to 70 quintals of barley per hectare with the training provided by Heineken Ethiopia and using the best seeds, fertilizers and herbicides received awards and recognition at the recent program held in Asela, the capital of Arise Zone.
Barely farm
The Oromia Agricultural Transformation Enterprise, Bosa Konofa Microfinance, Aris Zone Administration and Asela Malt Factory gave their testimonies on this program and said that they are in a promising phase to supply the foreign market with barley production within seven years.
Based on the fact Heineken Ethiopia, various awards and certificates of recognition were given to those who contributed greatly to the success of the plan.