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The paper explores the extent to which degree‐based postgraduate training programmes contribute to the development of individual skills and careers in agricultural science as well as towards institutional capacity for national agricultural research in Africa. In the case of the International Livestock Research Institute’s Graduate Fellowship Programme it was concluded that advanced agricultural science training in Africa provides a vital process of human and institutional development. The results of this study indicate the success of degree‐based training in terms of achieving improved gender equity, rapid employment, and a high rate of return to the country of origin. These results stand out against the “brain drain” commonly associated with capacity building in national agricultural research systems (NARS). The paper recommends strategies to be adopted by ILRI and its partners for future degree training and capacity building in sub‐Saharan Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of access to credit and safety nets on fertilizer adoption in rural Ethiopia.

A panel data set collected in 2005 and 2007 on 278 households and over 5,700 plots from the Southern Highlands of Ethiopia is examined. The authors developed a theoretical model relating input use and credit contract under third-party credit collateral agreement. The estimation is based on instrumental variables regressions to account for the endogeneity of credit access, and safety nets in fertilizer demand equation.

Despite increasing trends in fertilizer and improved varieties adoption since mid-2003, only 22 percent of the plots in the sample is actually received fertilizer. Households with more assets measured by livestock wealth are more likely to adopt fertilizer but less likely to participate in the local credit market as they have better savings that could be used to buy fertilizer/improved seeds without credit contract. This suggests poorer farmers heavily depend on credit than wealthier. Participation in safety nets programs did not contribute for increased use of fertilizer suggesting that the program either competes with agricultural labor or the low wage income was not enough to pay for farm inputs.

The findings show that with a heavier reliance on credit by poorer farmers it appears that much might be gained by targeting policies toward increasing credit access to this group.

Studies that utilize repeated plot- and household-level observations are limited. To the knowledge, this is the first study showing the relationship between credit accesses, public work program and fertilizer adoption over time in rural Ethiopia.