The AllPeopleBeHappy foundation has just renewed for the 8th year in a row a $10,000 Project Grant to Kossoye Development Program (KDP). KDP is a sustainable agriculture non-profit working in the North Gondar region of Ethiopia. For over 10 years, KDP has been promoting the establishment of home vegetable gardens as a mean to combat malnutrition. In 2015, due to the increasing popularity of potato in Ethiopia, our grant was used to build a seed potato storage warehouse. For 2016, our grant will be used to create a sustainable vegetable seed market in the North Gondar Region. KDP distributes each year over 42,000 seed packets, consisting of chard, lettuce, cabbage, and carrots seeds. Most of the seeds were purchased and shipped in from other regions of Ethiopia. A fund of $20,000 is being set up for the purchase of vegetable seeds from 30 local seed producers. This is an important step toward creating a local vegetable seed supply; sustainability of the KDP process will happen with the transitioning away from free distribution toward a market-based distribution of seeds.
Blog #76: Vegetable Seed Market
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