Fruit trees: hopes, illusions and disillusions

For a well functioning watersheds that provides all the necessary ecosystem services, there should be forests on the upslope of the watersheds. But in the Ethiopian Blue Nile context, these areas have been deforested and cultivated, mainly due to increasing population densities.

The infiltration properties of the upslope has changed : less water infiltrates, there is more run-off and therefore more erosion and ground water does not recharge. The lack of trees on the slope can explain to a large extend why watersheds are getting dryer.

a typical Ethiopian landscape with only very little forest

Motivating farmers on the upslopes to plant trees is difficult as there are only very little benefit from the trees for the farmers who plants them, but there are benefits for downstream farmers. Basically there are two options to approach the problem. Or one develops a benefit sharing mechanism where the downstream farmer compensate the farmers upstream for loosing its crop land for trees, which is very difficult in the Ethiopian context, or one finds solutions that are profitable for the upstream farmers.

Apple in Laku watershed (Shambu)

Some trees at least in the mid terms can give benefits to upstream farmers. This is the case of the multipurpose trees and for fruit trees.

Multipurpose trees can provide high quality fodder during the dry season (when there is shortage of fodder) allowing upstream farmers to intensify there livestock production. (for more information see : http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/changing-livelihoods-at-very-little.html)
The second option is fruit trees, like apple and peaches in the highlands or mango and papaya in the lowlands. These are interesting options because fruits allows farmer to diversify their diets as well as their income.
This second option has been recognized by NGOs and has been pushed in different locations in Ethiopia, and farmers are more and more aware of fruit trees as a diversfication option.

During the field work in the four watersheds (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html) , all the farmers wanted to have some fruit trees, some had it and could harvest, some just planted trees and cannot harvest yet, others only wished they could access seedlings.

Let's look at these different stages, hopes, illusions and disillusions in each of the fruit tree implementations stages.
In the Gorosole watershed (Ambo), farmers do not have fruit trees but have heart of it. They would like to have apples and peaches because they believe it could be a new source of income. Unfortunately they don't know how to access seedlings nor have sufficient knowledge to grow the trees.

The apple tree planted this year in Zefie watershed

In Zefie watershed, some farmers started to plant apple tree three years ago. The strategy is to plant the trees on the soil bunds to not loose crop land. Also every year they plant some additional seedling.

The 3 years old apple tree in Zefie (does not give apples yet)

None of the farmers has yet harvested any apple in Zefie. Nonetheless, more and more apples tree are planted and more farmers are considering of planting apples because they believe that they can sell apples and diversify their income.

Papaya trees in Maksenit watershed

In Maksenit watershed, apples are not an option as it is low lands. Some farmers have planted papaya trees in so called "home gardens". Very few households have access to water during the dry season to get the papayas growing. Those who have it mainly consume the papaya themselves. Income in this area mainly comes from garlic wich is a good business (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/success-and-failures-maksenit-watershed.html) and therefore do not really need papaya to get more cash.

Finally Shambu watershed produces apples. Seedlings have been introduced 10 years ago by an NGO and some farmers today have an apple orchard on their farms. The farmer i have talked to runs his own apple tree nursery and sells some of the seedling to other farmers in the area. Each year he extends his orchards with new trees. In this way he can level his loss of land. He can get incomes from older apple trees, and therefore can afford to loose some cropland for new apple trees that will take 5-7 years to give apple.

the apple orchard in Shambu

He has apple but finds it very difficult to sell them. The lack of market linkage is the main reason why he cannot make the expected benefits from apple. Therefore he is also trying to intensify his livestock production as well as in poultry production.
Whereas for many farmers who do not yet harvest yet, fruits are a symbol of hope. But the reality in Shambu shows that it is actually an illusion. The only farmer that really could harvest apples was disillusioned.

the apple tree nursery 

Fruit trees are a promising option  to restore ecosystem services in watersheds, but are only likely to work if farmers are linked to markets when they can start harvesting. Not later than yesterday i bought some apples for 50 birr per kilo (about 2.5 dollars a kg). It might not sounds too much to you, but for comparison 1 kg tomatoes is about 12 birrs, onions about 8 birrs, improved (huge and juicy) mangos 25 birrs. There is definitely huge potential for apples, it is a matter of unlocking the potential and linking farmers to markets.

Similarity analysis for the Blue Nile basin

Lots of people might imagine that developing countries have very little data available. When I started working for ILRI and IWMI, I was in fact astonished by the diversity of data available also in form of geographical layers. Clearly, there is less data and less accurate data for developing countries like Ethiopia, then for developed countries like the Netherlands.
Nonetheless, when i started working in Ethiopia there was no list of the geographical layer available for the Blue Nile. My first internal report for the NBDC project gives this overview and performs a similarity analysis allowing to identify locations with similar bio-physical and socio-economic spatial patterns.
Find this report under :
http://nilebdc.org/2012/06/20/similarity-analysis-for-the-blue-nile-basin-in-the-ethiopian-highlands-new-nbdc-technical-report-guides-site-selection-and-likely-technology-spillovers/

successes and failures : the Maksenit watershed (Gonder)

During my recent field trips, i got the chance to walk through a very interesting watershed : Maksenit Watershed, which outlet lies on the border of Maksenit town, South East of Gonder, Ethiopia.

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approximate location of the farmers' training center of Maksenit watershed

It is a very interesting watershed, as GIZ (German development cooperation), ICARDA (international center for agricultural research in dry areas) and the Ethiopian government have been involved in water issues over the last years. It is a watershed full of success stories and failures.

Please join me on this long but interesting walk across the watershed. I started the walk near to the farmers' training center and discovered 3 of the 5 water havesting ponds. These ponds have been build by ICARDA in order to better understand on the ground under which conditions individual water pond could work. (have a look at for a study that suggest that ponds do not work in the Ethiopian context http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2011/10/bahir-dar-reporting-series-is-water.html)

the almost empty pond

Two basins trap the sediment before the water flows into the pond

Some farmers got a treadle pump and a drip irrigation system, other just irrigate with a simple bucket. The pond allows to irrigate a plot of 30x20m and get one crop during the dry season, mainly pepper.

ICARDA has also installed two sediment traps to measure sediments from an untreated watershed, and one from a watershed treated with terraces and bunds. Sounds like a great initiative, in a country where there is no empirical evidence that about the effectiveness of this type of technologies. Finally ICARDA also has build a monitoring station at the outlet, allowing to know all the year round how much water is following in the perenial river. 

female headed household 

But while crossing a watershed, there is nothing better than stopping and talking to farmers. The first farmer I stopped at, was a female headed household. The lady and her three kids mainly live from selling garlic which is grown near to the outlet and is irrigated thanks to a river diversion. She earns enough money to invest into a house in Maksenit town, that she plans to rent out.

Roof full of dry garlic, the source of cash for many farmers in the watershed.

Years ago, a roof water harvesting system and a cistern has been built on her farm by GIZ. Unfortunately, the cistern is leaking even after several attempt to repair and therefore is not in use anymore. She did not seem to really need the cistern as she could get water for domestic use from the near by river. 

the roof water harvesting installation with the leaking cistern 

The whole farm is surrounded by fodder trees that allow her to feed her livestock during the dry season. She also has a sort of olive tree, that does not give edible olives but is a very good timber tree. To have sufficient trees, she has a mobile tree nursery, which she can carry around, mainly to the water or to the shadow when necessary. She mainly uses the seedling for herself. A governmental tree nursery is within walking distance near to Maksenit, in case she want seedling from trees she does not have. Finally she also had modern beehives, allowing her to get income from honey. 

the mobile tree nursery 

As we walked upwards, we discovered an amazing landscape with mountains in the back covered with shrubs, and in the flatter areas, farmers where ploughing. 

looking upwards 

We stopped at another farmer who ended up guiding us through the watershed. He had a very similar livelihood, with garlic as major income, mobile tree nursery, traditional and modern beehives. He also affords a pump that allow him to irrigate some of his plots. He also rents out the pump. In principle he has electricity, but the distributor broke down. And despite of the continuous request of the community, the government did not give them the permission to repair the electric system. 

the tube used for irrigating with the pumps 

Near to his house, there is a non-perennial river that was dry. Nonetheless one can tab from the underground stream. ICARDA has build a pump that now allows his wife to get domestic water from very near by. 

the ICARDA water pump

A bit further down in the river bed, one can find hand dug wells, which are used for livestock as well as irrigation of near by nurseries (trees or pepper). He makes use of the pump, to get water from the well to the nursery and in some other season to irrigate nearby plots.

a hand dug well in the river bed, taping into the underground stream.

One of his neighbors tried to get groundwater by digging a well on his field, but could not find any water after 10m. So the whole was closed again. 

the unsuccessful well

Walking down the watershed towards the outlet, we stopped at a "papaya orchard" or what the locals call "home garden". Also pepper could be found next to the papaya trees. Women are usually responsible for these home gardens.

Papaya orchard

As we were crossing the main gravel road in the watershed, we found again a plot owned by the farmer who was guiding us. The plots South of the road in the flat area are mainly vertisol, that are soil that can absorb a lot of water and keep soil moisture over a long period. He would use the run-off of the road and divert the stream to flood his fields increase the number of days with sufficient soil moisture to crop (also referred as spate irrigation). He would even use electric pole from the ongoing renovation of the electric system, that has not yet been fixed to divert the water. 

furrows for diverting the water during the rainy season

In principle on these vertisol one can have 3 crops per year, first a cereal, then a legume on residual moisture and then a high value crop (pepper, onion or garlic) if there is access to irrigation water. 

Also we found the relatively big tree nursery. All the trees were dead, attacked by termites. 

the failed tree nursery

Back to the road we found another manual water pump taping water from the underground stream. It was build by the government as part of the WASH program and came with a additional concrete basin for giving water to livestock and a concrete place to wash cloth. The two latter infrastructures were broken and not in use anymore. Just the pump survived, and a micro-dam from earth has been built to capture the excess water pumped, were livestock can access water now. 

the govermental pump

the broken washing basin

the micro basin that capture excess water from the pump and is used for livestock

This is a nice example on how locals adapt and use the infrastructure differently than inially though of. Cloth are washed in the nearby perennial river.

In this watershed, some things have worked : the pumps are still in use, mobile nurseries allow women to grow their own seedling, hand-dug wells allow to tap the underground streams, women grow more diversified food (papaya) for their families. Others haven't worked, the GIZ cistern is leaking, some hand-dug wells have been closed, a tree nursery failed due to termites. Finally others will have to proof their use : the ICARDA water harvesting ponds and their lifting devices. It is definitely a watershed where a lot has happened and there is a lot to learn both for the successes and the failures. I hope you have enjoyed on my virtual tour of the Maksenit watershed and that you are convinced now, that unless we have tired, we don't really know what works and what doesn't work.

I would like to thank Baye from the Gonder Agricultural Research center for having accompanied me on this transect walk of more than 5 hours as well as the farmer who crossed have to the watershed to show his success and failures on this fields.

the farmer (left) and Baye (right)

Giving rural communities a voice : adapting the "Happy strategy" game to communities

Within the multi-scale adoption studies I am currently involved with  (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html), we are running focus group discussion with some key informant farmers in 4 sites in the Blue Nile. I am just back from the Oromia sites, Gorosole (near Guder, Ambo) and Laku (near Shambu) where the focus group discussion have been run in collaboration with the Oromia agricultural research institute (OARI). 

The cards of the Happy Strategy game

For the focus group discussion we have adapted the "happy strategy" game. This is a game that has initially been developed to involve stakeholder into the discussion on how rainwater management practices should be combined within a landscape. The game consist of a set of practice cards that describe single rainwater management practice, as well as innovation cards, that are empty practice cards that can be filled if a given practice is not part of the game. Finally, there are intervention cards, that are cards that allow for changes beyond farmer's decision making that could enable the adoption of a practice, such as access to credit or access to seeds or better cooperation among the community. Each participant chooses a card and joins a "landscape" that is clearly described watershed, and discusses where and why the chosen card should be adopted. If the group does not agree the person has to find another landscape or trade the card. For more details have a look at : http://nilebdc.org/2011/11/20/happy-strategies-where-strategic-land-and-water-management-is-as-simple-as-playing-a-game/
http://nilebdc.org/2011/11/24/jegerida/ 

Opening the focus group discussion : Gerba welcomes the participants, introduces the project, the objectives and explains how the whole happy strategy approach works.

This game has been adapted for communities and is used to identify what the best watershed management would be from the perspective of the farmers. In addition we want to identify what hampers adoption of the wished practices and identify the needed interventions allowing the adoption of those practices. Finally we also try to capture upstream downstream effect, identify winners and losers in the landscape as well as trade-off and synergies.

The used approach is the following (in gender separated groups):

1. participatory watershed mapping exercise, in order to create a map that all the participants can understand, with colored post-it they can indicate land use.

Mapping exercise with the women's group in Gorosole 

2. Identifying rainwater management practices that the farmer know of, these are selected from the happy strategy game

The happy strategy cards are ready, as farmers mention a practice , the relevant card is introduced into the game 

3. Let every participant choose her/his favorite practice, place it on the map and discuss with the group why the practice should be there, the benefits of the practices and if it is adopted what type of support they got or if it is not adopted what hamper adoption.

A participant choosing a card (Shambu)

A participant explaining his choice (Shambu)

4. Discuss synergies and trade-offs of the ideal watershed

The facilitator Zerihun, in the discussion with the farmers (Shambu)

5. presenting the work to the other group and have a more general discussion and evaluation. 

Women's group presenting their work on their final map (Shambu)

The men are carefully listening to the presentation of the women's work, after it will be the other way round (Shambu)

The whole processes in followed by at least two note takers who make sure that none of the relevant information gets lost. 

Gerba taking notes from the general discussion (Gorosole)

We have been developing feasibility maps that show where which practice should be feasible in terms of bio-physical but also socio-economic conditions. Results from these focus group will be used to validate these maps. Basing validation upon an wished watershed management instead of observed adoption on the ground might in the Ethiopian context be a smarter way to validate the maps. Indeed, due to important top down policies, practices might be adopted on an non-suitable location. Other practices might not be adopted, not because they are not suitable but because farmers crucially lack access to input, finances or knowledge (which is difficult to map and take into account in our feasibility maps).

The discussion in Oromia went very well, both women and men came up with new ideas, challenging our maps and our understanding of the landscape. Finally, in Gorosole, one of the participant has mentioned in the evaluation round, that he is very happy that he was given the chance to think about future beyond of what he has and he believes to be within his reach, in a time that is about "to be or not to be". 

Discussion from the different focus group discussions and lessons learnt will follow in up coming posts. 

Some impressions from the discussions : 

women's group presentation (Gorosole)

Men's group, defining the land use of their watershed (with colored post-it) (Gorosole)

Women's group defining land use is their watershed (Shambu) in a calm and silent way

Men's group defining land use in their watershed (Shambu) in a lively discussion

A very lively general discussion in Shambu

 

 

Find the Happy Strategies website : happystrategies.wikispaces.com

Changing livelihoods at very little costs : the tree nursery in Zefie watershed

In Zefie watershed, the NGO Tana Beles (http://tana-beleswme.org/)  has instated a tree nursery based on a very interesting concept. The government has given some of the communal land to the NGO to set up a tree nursery near to the river outlet. As the river is perennial, water can be carried from the river to water the seedlings. The 3 employees are paid by the NGO. As their wage is very little, the employees are allowed to use the unused land for their own purpose. The employees plant garlic and onions. These are high value crop they can grow in the dry season by irrigating the plots. In this way the employees can improve their wages.

The tree nursery

The nursery produces grow multi-purpose tree seedling, namely Saglina, Lucerne and Sesbania. Multi-purpose trees as its name indicates fulfills different purposes such as nitrogen binding (and therefore increasing soil fertility), providing timber/fuel, providing high quality fodder for livestock. In addition, trees increase water infiltration when planted on the slope. Despite of these benefits, adoption of multi-purpose trees is low. It might be because alternative land uses such as crop production provides more immediate benefits than trees that need time to grow.

Tree seedlings

Nonetheless, there are smart option for multipurpose trees, such as planting them on the contours or to stabilize gullies or soil bunds. Multipurpose trees might also be a key in farming systems in which livestock intensity is increasing. Indeed, it can provide protein rich fodder that is crucially needed when local cow breeds are replaced by improved breeds that are more productive or to address some fodder shortages during the dry season.

Access to water for the nursery (and outlet of the watershed)

Accessing multipurpose tree seedlings is one of the biggest challenge for farmers and one of the reason why farmers do not adopt multipurpose tree. Tana Beles addresses this gap by promoting the tree nursery. It is good example on how development work can possibly change farming systems and livelihoods of smallholders without costing a lot of money. The tree nursery initiative is very recent, only time will show if it will bring the hoped benefits.

enhancing market information, really?

Debre Tabor, a typical Ethiopian district town... a main square, some shops selling cloth, food (staple, oil, sugar), soap, some photo printer and some shop selling mobile phones or the newest Teddy Afro CD (with the current hit des yemil seqay that was always on in the car going when I was in the fields) ... 

yes, after asking many people and walking up and down, we manage to find the only stationary shop, and even managed to buy one of the 5 stapler available. Basically, for European standard there is nothing in Debre Tabor.

Suddenly on the main square i see this electronic announcement board, looking like the bus or train departure boards in many European towns... It felt very surreal... nooooooooo this is not possible.

In fact the board announces the Addis market prices of the major agricultural goods in produced in Ethiopia. It is part of enhancing market information to farmers, an initiative discussed at the TED talks in 2007.

Cool idea, real time market information into the Ethiopian bush... Technology really can change how things go in the developing world...

One problem in Ethiopia is truly that farmers do not know the market price of their products. The middle man who buy the agricultural products to bring them to town therefore has the bargaining power and farmers always get very low prices for the products...

But does this surreal electronic board really help the farmers? Debre Tabor is 4 walking hours away from the Zefie watershed, where I did some field work. Very few farmers have indicated that they would go to Debre Tabor, and those who have go there once or twice a year. Most of the farmers have no mobile phones, some of them have a radio. As these farm are not electrified, charging your mobile phone is not possible and listening to radio means that you afforded to buy some batteries. Do these farmers really benefit from this electronic board? or does it just help the middle man to calculate his profit on the way to the farmer?

Livelihoods strategies in Zefie watershed, some impressions from the farm household survey

In Zefie watershed, 90 farm households have been interviewed for the NBDC project by the Amhara Regional Agricultural Institute (ARARI). The sample was stratified to insure that the three landscape zone (see http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html) as well as the female headed households were represented.
As part of our quality control, I have checked all the 90 surveys, and share with you some impressions. Note that these results are preliminary and are not based on any formal statistical analysis.

A female enumerator, interviewing a female household head

Our questionnaire contained a whole bunch of question allowing to assess the level of hunger in the area. The amount of month a household could feed itself from its own production was ranging from 8-12 months. Also diets are very un-diversified, mainly based on wheat, and sometimes supplemented by beans. (Note that the question asked about the food consumption of the last week, as they just have planted potatoes, they do not have any left for food). Interesting is also that most of the households have little livestock and therefore potentially access to animal proteins. But usually animal proteins are sold on market for cash and never consumed by the household. Finally most of the household have indicated that they do not eat the food they want to eat due to food shortage. Only few household mentioned to not eat at all for a day more than 10 times in the last dry season because of food shortages.

geo-referencing the homestead

In most households, one family member migrates for 2-3 months to the city (Humera) for getting some income. The reason for migrating is or land shortage or food insecurity. This income ranges from 500-2000 birr (30-112 dollars) per migration season. There is no household living as daily laborer. We have not met any landless people. We think this is because land is still big enough (older households have up to 5 Timat = 1,25 ha) to be shared with the younger generation. Also the young people stay on their parents farm, resulting in our survey into bigger households on the same land, but no landless people. There is very little on-farm diversification, some of the household sell charcoal or have off-farm employment.

Quality control : the field supervisor checking the just filled questionnaire

A whole bunch of question looked at livestock exchange. Interestingly many farmer indicated that they let other households keep and feed their livestock. The reason indicated by farmers who give away their livestock is labor shortage. Most commonly the benefit of the animal goes to the animal keeper, but the risk of loss (death or theft) is taken by the owner. Most of the farmers give their livestock to family members nearby (5-20 min walking from their homestead) who have more labor capacity. My logic tells me that if some households give let others household located very nearby keep their livestock, there must be approximately the same amount of households that keep livestock for others. Strangely this is not the case in our survey. Two possible explanations for this : first it might be a sampling problem, secondly smallholders do not perceive helping out their relatives/neighbor who have labor shortage for livestock as "keeping livestock for others".
In terms of rainwater management, most farmers have bunds, both stone and soil and most of them somehow manage their gullies, and enclose their farmland. Nonetheless, livestock grazes freely within the farm boundaries. Nonetheless the farmers mention that they use the cut and carry system. They then refer to the fact that they bring weeds and grasses that are growing on the bunds or on the field contours to the livestock. As groundwater is shallow, some of the farmers have shallow wells from which water is lifted with a bucket. Multipurpose trees are not very common in the area, this might change with the tree nursery (see http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/05/understanding-landscape-dynamics-zefie.html). Despite of this the watershed has many acacia trees in the fields and eucalyptus trees to stabilize the gullies and on farm boundaries. Fruit trees, namely apple is very recent and benefits are not yet observed, but there is a lot of hope that this will be a profitable business. River diversion is not really suitable in the area and are not observed.

Talking to farmers in order to understand what cannot be captured by the survey

Reasons for non-adoption of rainwater management practices are land shortage, lack of market access (for improved breeds or varieties) and sometimes lack of capital.
In the discussion with the farmers, after filling the survey have mentioned the limitation of improving productivity of crop production and therefore wish to be able to access improved livestock breeds and improve livestock productivity.

the joint ARARI-IWMI/ILRI supervision team

Understanding landscape dynamics : the Zefie watershed (near Debre Tabor)

For the project I am working on, namely the Nile Basin Challenge Program (http://nilebdc.org/), project n3, we have the task to understand why farmers do not adopt some rainwater management strategies despite of their potential benefits. Under rainwater management strategies, we understand a combination of rainwater management practices that increases water infiltration in the upland a landscape, soil and water conservation in the midland and that increase water productivity in the lowlands. Rainwater management practice has to be understood in very broad terms and include beyond water harvesting a whole range of practices affecting crops, livestock and trees.

A typical house in Zefie watershed

In order to understand adoption and non adoption of rainwater management strategies, we take a multi-scale approach. To capture the farm scale, we  interview 600 farmers in 7 different watersheds of the Ethiopian Blue Nile, making sure that we cover the high, mid and lowland of each landscape. In the 4 watersheds that have to yet been studied by other projects, we also run focus group discussion to capture the landscape scale. We bring together key informant from the community and ask them to imagine the best possible rainwater management strategy for their watershed. Then we will discuss with them what hampers the implementation of that strategy.
I will use this blog to share with you the most astonishing, the most impressing or the most informative stories or lesson learnt from the fields, in the form of a field report series.

This week I visited the Zefie watershed in Amhara region (Northern Ethiopia) near Debre Tabor. It is a relatively small watershed of about 350 ha with an important slope, allowing to cover the different zones of the landscape in a relatively short distance.

View Larger Map
It is shaped by a bi-modal rainy season allowing to harvest twice a year. The major crops planted are potatoes, wheat, barley and to a smaller extend legumes. All this crops are rain fed, with some very little exceptions
Ground water levels are high, allowing some of the farmers to have hand dug shallow wells, where water is accessible within 3-10m. As the ground water is relatively salty, it is mainly therefore used for supplemental irrigation and for watering the 4 squared meter of pepper production (both for home consumption and selling). Drinking water is usually carried from the stream.

Midland of the Zefie watershed

The watershed is well managed also thanks to the intervention of the NGO Tana Beles (http://tana-beleswme.org/)  and GIZ. In the midland, almost the whole area has bunds. As the soil is very shallow and stony, the midlands are mainly shaped by stone bunds and terraces. On flatter areas with deeper soils, a lot of recent soil bunds can be observed. Farmers intend to plant some grasses and trees on these bunds in a near future. In the highlands, some farmers have started to plant apple trees. The oldest apple tree is 3 years old and gave its first apples this year. As planting apple tree require irrigation at least until the tree roots grow deep, only farmers with a well have adopted this practice mainly around the soil bunds. In the lowlands, some farmer have agriculture, but it is mostly communal grazing land.

The government gave some of this grazing land to the NGO Tana Beles, that has set up a tree nursery near to the perennial river. The nursery employs 3 persons to grow the tree seedlings that are irrigated manually (walking to the river with a jericane). They grow mainly multi-purpose trees, namely Saligna tree, Lucerne tree and Sesbania. These seedlings can be picked up by the farmers for free. This must be a very recent initiative as a quick look in our farm surveys suggest only very few of the interviewed farmers has multi-purpose trees, and no one mentioned the nursery.
Gullies shape the landscape from the upland to the lowland. They often also mark the farm boundaries. As they are often privately owned, they are often managed. The most common way of stabilization is planning eucalyptus trees into the gullies, sometimes also some grasses. Also area enclosure, that is putting fences (mainly with eucalyptus leaves), can be observed on farm boundaries that are not gullies. This allows farmers to protect their private land from free grazing livestock. Often their own livestock is grazing freely within the farm boundaries.

The chart hanging in the agricultural development worker's office showing the last year achievements for the area, Zefie watershed is presented in the first column 

From the agricultural development worker we discovered that there is a marketing cooperative that helps farmers to bring their potatoes to the market. It seems that the cooperative collects the potatoes from different farmers and then sell them in one transaction to a middleman that then transports them to the big cities. It seems that this cooperative is open to anyone in the watershed. In a quick review in the farm household survey, no farmer has mentioned this cooperative… another mystery of the Ethiopian highlands…
Also the way from Debre Tabor to Zefie is very interesting. One can see very large grazing land with huge gullies, that are well controlled with stone check dam, build by GIZ (I was told).

Stone check-dams build by GIZ

Also on the way, lies Addis Alem where can find the seed multiplication and marketing cooperative. This cooperative holds two impoved potatoe seeds, which are sold to farmers for reproduction. It seems that this cooperative is mainly run by the govement and supported by Oxfam and the European union. I could not really figure out from the people living around it, it it really makes a change to them or if it is the cooperative about which we heart from the agricultural development worker. The language and cultural barrier was to big to really figure out how it works.

Sign indicating the seed and marketing cooperative

It is a very interesting area, and i am looking forward to see what the farm household surveys and the focus group discussion are going to teach us about the landscape dynamics of this watershed...

Value chains in Ethiopia : Bill Gates' vision

Here is a movies from Bill Gates about agriculture and health in Ethiopia. It give a great overview of the current situation in Ethiopia.

This movie shows the importance of creating market access for smallholders. Market access does not mean to just be able to sell a product. It implies looking at the whole production chain, making sure that the farmers can access seeds and sell their product later on. The movie shows what it means to develop a value chain and points out some success stories in Ethiopia.




Also see the photo gallery from Bill Gate
http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Topics/Development/Photo-Gallery-Agriculture-in-Ethiopia 

Closing the Mauritius reporting series : lessons learnt from the conference on water management in Africa (Mauritius reporting series)

The conference on water in Mauritius I have been reporting about over the last weeks, was a big success. Every one could learn a lot from others. But the most important in the encounter with all these different people, learning who they are, what they work on, what their major challenges are. Also conference came up with a list of recommendations for policy maker, that is currently still under revision (i will share the final recommendations when they will be available).

Find here Dr Michael Atchia (http://www.michael-atchia.info) from Mauritius a co-organizer of the conference about his take home message and explaining more about the recommendations.

Here Zelina Mula from the academy of science of South Africa about her experience at the conference :

 

And there some voices of female researchers about why water is so important in the African context and what their take home message from the conference is.

Professor Stella Inya-Agha, Nigeria

Professor Josephine Ngaira, Kenya

Rasha Adam (Phd candidate), Kenya/Soudan

This finishes the Mauritius reporting series. It was a great conference in one of the most beautiful locations in the world. I would like to thank the organizers and the funders for giving me opportunity to join, learn and enjoy...