Land degradation is one of the most serious problems facing Ethiopia today. Population pressure and low yields are forcing farmers to abandon traditional systems for maintaining soil quality, such as fallowing (leaving a field idle for a period of time so that it retains nutrients and moisture for the next crop year) and crop rotations. In response to this challenge, a project was funded by the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) to develop profitable farming practices based on sound ecological principles (managing and using local natural resources efficiently.) The main components of the project include soil and water conservation practices, compost making, and the re-establishment of vegetation.
Poor soils
In Tigray, the most northern region of Ethiopia, over 85% of the population are farmers who struggle to feed their families from soils in poor condition that only produce low yields of staple crops.
Addressing failure
In order to improve crop yield in the region, the Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Tigray (BoANR) adopted the Sasakawa Global (SG) 2000 package, which is based on high input demanding varieties and chemical fertilisers. However, the cost of these inputs is beyond the purchasing power of most farmers in the region and some of those who have used these inputs have fallen into a debt trap. Prolonged use of chemical fertilisers also has negative side effects on the environment.
Focus
The focus of the project was to find mechanisms that would help poor rural communities. The aim was to improve both the environment, and the capacity to produce crops, without becoming dependent on external inputs. In 1996, the ISD in collaboration with BoANR started to work with four rural farming communities in Tigray. The four communities selected for the project were Zeban Sas and Gu’emse in the Eastern Zone of Tigray, Adibo Mossa in the Southern Zone and Adi Nefas in the Central Zone.
Tailoring to the environment
Each area has its own specific characteristics. Depending on the specific needs of each of the communities, different practices were employed. These included:
The construction of trench bunds
Check dams and ponds
The making and use of compost
The use of manure
The planting of trees, forage and grass species
Use of genetically diverse seed material
Natural pest and disease management
The performance of an organic production system developed in each of the four communities was compared with the performance of a production system based on the Sasakawa Global (SG) 2000 package in a neighbouring village. This was done in order to compare the two strategies for sustainability.
Benefiting from compost
Compost making is a new practice in Ethiopia, so efforts were required to convince farmers to try it. At the start of the project only a small number of growers made compost. But after observing how production increased when compost was used, others began to prepare and use it. Farmers noticed that the straw from crops grown with compost was more palatable to livestock and that composting had a dramatic effect on weeds.
In 1996/97 the project started in Adibo Mossa with 45 farmers making and using compost. By 1998 this figure had more than doubled. In Adi Nefas, farmers not included in the project started making compost on their own initiative without encouragement from project personnel.
Increasing yields
In each project location, farmer-managed trials were established in the fields. The yields of finger millet, barley and wheat on composted fields were comparable with those where chemical fertilisers had been applied. Tef, (Ethiopia's staple cereal crop) gave higher yields when grown on composted plots. The effect of compost on maize yields was variable when compared to the results achieved with chemical fertiliser. There were much higher straw yields from the composted plots in comparison to the chemically fertilised ones. Farmers welcomed this because their animals often have to subsist on crop residues during the dry season. The increased straw yields also enabled farmers to prepare more compost because there was more animal manure and increased plant material.
Conserving soil and water
Impressive results in soil and water conservation have been observed in three of the four project sites since 1997. The spread of gullies had been halted and soil has been retained that would otherwise have been washed away. Water retention and infiltration have also improved.
Adi Nefas had been losing fertile land through a gully that started at the base of the neighbouring hillside. To address this farmers built a series of check dams up the gully, and in one year enough soil was captured to allow for the planting of grass and trees. The construction of check dams has been effective in Zeban Sas as well, although soil accumulation has been slower. Unfortunately, Gu’emse has not been successful in its attempts to halt a very wide gully caused by the run-off from a large catchment area of virtually bare hillside. An effort that involves several other communities upstream is required.
Water is a scarce resource during the dry season in Adi Nefas, Zeban Sas and Gu’emse and the farmers, with financial support from ISD, have now constructed ponds to collect water so that it is available in the dry season. The programme was expanded to 21 villages in 1999 and construction of trench bunds on farmlands and check dams in gullies was carried out in 14 out of the 21 new sites.
Planting trees and grass
Both indigenous and selected exotic forage grasses and legumes, as well as trees and shrubs (used for construction and fuel) have been planted on hillsides, around farms and houses, near to the newly constructed and maintained gullies and along trench bunds.
This planting has been carried out in the four original sites as well as in 14 new sites. This has allowed farmers to:
Use forage trees for feeding their cattle
Plant and protect grasses and legumes for stabilizing trench bunds and check dams
Enrich degraded lands
Increase the amount of biomass available for compost making and feeding animals
In Zeban Sas, the success of the project was first witnessed with the rehabilitation of approximately 30 hectares of abandoned, rocky grazing land. Having seen their grazing land restored, farmers started working on other components so the area as a whole has now been almost rehabilitated and is green, with farmers getting their income from fattening and selling cattle.
Legislating for sustainability
All four communities have now drawn up their own statutes to control the use of their land and renewable natural resources. These statutes set out rules and regulations that community members agree to and penalties for anyone who infringes them. The communities themselves developed the statutes, and respective local governments recognise and uphold them.
The regional government of Tigray has also adopted this project. This means that, if the ISD has to pull out, the programme will still continue. The regional government has spread the project to more than 2000 households in more than 83 villages.
A recent development is even more significant: the project has been taken up by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) of Ethiopia with support from UNDP and will now be upscaled to the national level.
Stakeholder control
The secret of the success of this project lies in the involvement at the planning stage of almost all of the stakeholders. Ensuring the active involvement of farmers requires for the provision of a range of choices and alternatives to consider rather than just making prescriptions for improving one part of the farming system.
The project offers a range of choices and farmers adopt those that suit their ecological and social setting. Experience has shown that each village has a preference for one or two of the different components of the project. At Zeban Sas, the emphasis has been on soil and water conservation, because the area was badly affected by soil degradation. At Gu’emse and Adibo Mossa farmers adopted composting rapidly, because there was already sufficient plant material and animal manure for making this natural fertiliser.
At Gu’emse, check dams were not very effective in halting gullying and halting the spread of gullies is now the community’s top priority.
The farmers at Adi Nefas are actively participating in all components of the project, much more noticeably than at the other sites. This is probably because of the rapid positive outcomes of making check dams and preparing and using compost. These early successes, coupled with the high population density, have given farmers a strong motivation to intensify the use of their land in a sustainable way.
