The GIZ-funded Upscaling access to winner varieties in Ethiopia project has entered its third and final year of implementation. A lot has been achieved in terms of increasing the availability of quality seed of varieties of chickpea, durum wheat, fava bean, and finger millet that have emerged as winners of farmers’ preferences, which were crowdsourced by Bioversity International and its partners including ISSD Ethiopia. Seed producer cooperatives engaged in local seed business and community seed banks have been selected and strengthened to upscale production of these winner varieties, and both researchers at regional agricultural research institutes and extension workers at Woreda offices of agriculture have been trained in Tricot for the continued practice of crowdsourcing winner varieties.

Winner varieties are accessed in different ways. Here we describe the different pathways to distribute quality seed of winner varieties from direct beneficiaries of the project to indirect beneficiaries. Pathway 1 involves primary (1°) distribution of seed of winner varieties to direct beneficiaries of the project. Pathways 2 & 3 involve secondary (2°) distribution of seed from direct to indirect beneficiaries. Pathway 4 involves tertiary distribution (3°) from indirect to more indirect beneficiaries.