A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.) - Part IV
Constantin, Manuel and Nathalie are ETH students who participated in a two-week field project to Arba Minch, situated in the Gamo Gofa zone in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR) in Ethiopia from 16 November to 1 December 2019. In this last post, they talk about farmers that diversify their income and share a love story about soils.
Read more about the class in the first post of this series.
Weaving as off-farm income (by Constantin Heitzer)
Photo: Constantin Heitzer
A Dorze woman preparing cotton into threads for later weaving. The Dorze people are a small ethnic group living in the highlands of Southern Ethiopia, who are widely known for their unique elephant-shaped houses made of bamboo leaves and their proficiency in weaving. While several communities in the region face food and energy insecurity, our brief research stay showed that Dorze households have developed a particular strategy owing to their unique culture. While most households in the study region still pursue farming as a main livelihood (either self-sufficient or commercial), many Dorze households depend on external income from weaving and cultural tourism. In many cases, men migrate into the cities to find weaving jobs with better pay, whereby many Dorze households are female-headed. Farming activities only rarely exceed a kitchen garden and an enset field (enset is a common, starch-rich crop in the highlands) for the “hungry season”.
From soil erosion to apple trees (by Manuel Holzer)
Photo: Manuel Holzer
Yes, you are right! You see an apple tree standing in a wheat field in Ethiopia. During this field course, I stayed with my group in a village named Chencha located about 2700 meters above sea level in the Wet Daiga agroecological zone. In Chencha the terrain is hilly. Farmers have to fight soil erosion and they have to work hard to keep their land fertile. Land fragmentation seems to be another big problem contributing to poverty. Most farmers don’t manage to produce more as they need for their own families, because many of their fields are small and spread across the land, far from their homes. However, some farmers in Chencha are experimenting with apple as a cash crop they can sell on markets to increase their income. In the cold rainy season temperatures drop here below the freezing point, which makes apple cultivation possible as these trees only form buds when the temperature drops below zero. The apple trees in the wheat field are a nice example for agroforestry, helping to prevent soil erosion and adding to the productivity of the fields as long as there is no competition for nutrients. In Chencha apple trees might help the farmers to increase their income and livelihoods. I wish them good look with their apple experiment!
All about soils (Nathalie Windlin)
Photo: Nathalie Windlin
Every day of our stay in Chencha (2700 meters above sea level), our group was somehow kept busy with soils: When we walked our transect from the town to the country side and watched out for changes in the soil’s color, when looking at natural soil profiles next to streets and pathways. Soils and their fertility were also often mentioned by the local people in our interviews when we were asking them for the most important constraints they are facing. Last but not least, we had a closer look at the soils of several sites by augering. We have described the different horizons as well as their structure, texture and color (as shown on the picture, comparing a soil clod with the Munsell Soil Color Chart). Thanks to the fascination of the resource persons that were visiting us every day to support us in our field work, everybody in our group was excited about soils in the end as well!
A teff field close to Lante in the lowlands (altitude of approx. 1200 m a.s.l.). The back of the photo shows the highlands (1500 to 4500 m a.s.l.). (Photo: Anett Hofmann)
Close-up of teff (Eragrostis tef), an annual cereal grass, native to Ethiopia and Eritrea. The small grains are only about 1 millimeter long with a white or red color. Teff is one of the most important staple crop in Ethiopia. (Photo: Anett Hofmann)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
13 students from the Agricultural Sciences MSc study program and two students from the Environmental Sciences MSc study program participated in the 2019 Ethiopia field project. They are majoring in either Crop Sciences, Animal Sciences, Agricultural Economy, Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics. All of them now know the taste of injera, the traditional Ethiopian sourdough flatbread, made from teff flour.
We are grateful for the financial support by the WFSC (Course Support Grant for WFSC members) to the field projects in 2019 (Ethiopia), 2018 (Kenya) and 2017 (Ethiopia).