(00:02-00:06) Agriculture is important to Ethiopia’s economy as it supports over 80 percent of the population. (00:06-00:14) There are over eight million smallholder maize farmers in Ethiopia and they are hindered by old generation seeds that have low yields. (00:15-00:25) The Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Program, or AMSAP, is a public-private partnership that is increasing distribution of high quality seeds and transforming the productivity of smallholder maize farmers. (00:26-00:42) The New Alliance for food security and nutrition is a partnership between African governments, private companies, both local African companies as well as the international private sector and donors, to come together to lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2022… (00:43-00:55) small farmers in Ethiopia are trying to grow the same products as many farmers in developed countries like the United States. And those farmers deserve access to the same technologies and tools that other farmers have. (00:56-01:22) With the previous variety I used to get 1.2 tons from half a hectare of land. But this time with the new hybrid seed I got 2.4 tons from a quarter hectare. It is beautiful when it grows, it doesn’t fall over or break. We are very happy. (01:23-01:47) What we are seeing here today is part of an investment from DuPont Pioneer which is equivalent to 2 million dollars. With a state of the art conditioning facility which does seed cleaning, grading, treating and packing as well as a warehouse which can also store up to 4,500 metric tons. (01:49-02:01) The benefits of AMSAP have already been felt by tens of thousands of households across Ethiopia. The program was demonstrated by 320 model farmers last year, it expanded to 3,200 model farmers this year, and will sweep across the country to 32,000 farmers next by year. (02:02-02:20) We believe that the private sector has a big role in terms of technology access, in terms of extension support and particularly, the seed and the technology multiplication aspect is basically and will be driven by the private sector. (02:21-02:45) The AMSAP partnership is actually a fantastic example of a very well-functioning public private partnership in Ethiopia. AMSAP brings together one of the world’s leading agricultural companies, DuPont Pioneer, along with one of Ethiopia’s most important development partners, USAID, to bring about a market based solution for smallholder farmers. (02:46-02:57) AMSAP provides a scalable model that takes a holistic approach of addressing food and security. I look forward to seeing how AMSAP continues to generate rippling effects to improve the lives of people in Ethiopia, one farmer at a time. (02:58-03:20) With the money we get, we buy fertilizer, we use it for our expenses, and we can also buy cattle. Thankfully, we have made a very good profit, and we are using that profit for so many things.