Socioeconomics and Extension Research Directorate

General Background

The Socioeconomics and Extension Research Directorate (SEERD) is one of the five research branches of the Tigray Agricultural Research Institute. It is organized into two programs. The first is an agricultural economics research program that aims to generate evidence and information that is useful in supporting agricultural policy, investment decisions, and technological development. The second is agricultural extension research program. It aims to create a demand for improved agricultural technologies and practices that enable effective technology and knowledge transfer to end-users.
The research directorate holds forums for multi-stakeholders to critically identify and prioritize economic, social, natural, institutional, and agricultural policy and service-related problems to provide alternative research-based solutions. It also disseminates research results through a participatory research approach and creates platforms to be assessed by beneficiaries, stakeholders and policy makers.
The directorate currently has 25 staff members, with 20 of them being MSc holders (4 women) and 5 BSc graduates working at 8 research centers in the region.
Thematic (research) areas

• Technology promotion (demonstration, pre-extension popularization and Scaling) 
• Adoption and impact study
• Gender analysis  
• Agricultural policy and institutional analysis 
• Market research/value chain analysis 
• Extension system analysis 
• Panel data development and analysis: 
• Analysis of natural and environmental resources economics
• production constraints analysis 

Focus areas of the directorate

• Improve land, livestock and labor productivity
• Food and nutrition security 
• Market oriented commodities and import substitution
• Improve decision making power based on scientific evidences 
• Participatory research approach 
• Empower women and landless youth 
• Reduce post-harvest loss and human drudgery
• Reduce deforestation
• Transforming conventional agricultural practices
• Organizing, publishing and disseminating research findings

A significant outreach of improved agricultural technologies in crops, livestock, natural resource, and mechanization technologies was revealed by the research directorate in collaboration with different partners and supporters. During the past years, the research results have been compiled in the form of research papers and extension materials and distributed to a wider audience. In the last ten years, 53 research papers in proceedings and 45 journal articles have been published. The research directorate has made the results of the research publicly available on social media and local and national programs.

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