Since 1998, the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development of Tigray Region has adopted the making of compost as part of its extension package and by 2007 at least 25% of the farmers are making and using compost. A reflection of the success of this approach is that between 2003 and 2006 grain yield for the Region almost doubled from 714 to 1,354 thousand tonnes. Since 1998, there has also been a steady decrease in the use of chemical fertilizer from 13.7 to 8.2 thousand tonnes.