An Overview Of Our Solution
Farming families in Southern Ethiopia face two challenges: intensify farm productions while preserving the environment and adapt farming practices to cope with climate changes. Our approach mainly consists in planting fodder on anti-erosive structures and in the farms’ unproductive places. While addressing several issues (erosion and loss of fertility, fodder scarcity, moisture and fertility conservation), this single practice contributes to generate new sources of income (as well as food and wood), reduce women’s burden of collecting fodder and stop open grazing. The innovation, yet simple, is the result of a long implementing process, with 3 decisive elements: the development of farm based micro-nurseries; the association of grass and legumes forages to address the crucial livestock feeding problems; the involvement of traditional organizations Iddirs.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Africa
General Information
Organization type
Nonprofit
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Population impacted
15.000 families (90.000 people)
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
Average surface of a farm ranges between 0,3 and 0,55 hectare
Production quantity
The challenge mainly concern soil and water conservation, soil fertility, biodiversity and fodder production
People employed
Inter Aide : 15 people; RCBDIA : 10 people
Solution
Describe your solution
The core innovation, which has been developed since 1996, consists in combining soil conservation and fodder production. The basic idea is indeed to consider the necessity of soil conservation and climate-change adaptation as an opportunity to directly improve and diversify the farm productions and gradually engage the farmlands in the preservation of entire micro-watersheds. Benefiting from the support of Ilri (International Livestock Research Institute) and the Ministry of Agriculture, it has become a reference in the Southern Region and been widely diffused:
http://interaide.org/pratiques/content/combining-soil-conservation-and-fodder-production-adaptation-climate-change-southern-region
3 elements have reinforced the relevance and sustainability of this innovation:
-The association of grasses and leguminous species on anti-erosive embankments (as well as on unproductive or underused spaces), provides a direct response to animal fodder scarcity while contributing to maintaining soil fertility on the long run.
-The multiplication of vegetative material is organized by the families themselves in farm based micro-nurseries. It is an effective way to provide fast access to large quantities of fodder grasses and other vegetative material.
-The mobilization of traditional organizations, the "Iddirs", as the coordinating body to manage anti-erosive master plans at micro-watershed level and to setup rules to control open-grazing.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Main activities:
-Building and vegetating erosion control structures with grass and legumes to rapidly diversify and improve farm productions of forage, food and wood.
-Developing farm-based micro nurseries to allow a rapid introduction and diffusion of new varieties for a large number of farmers and improve the average survival rates (more than 90%).
-Mobilizing traditional organizations"Iddir" to implement a collective management system of land protection.
-Improve the situation of vulnerable farmers (about 30% of the families).
Comparative advantages:
-The land loss due to erosion control structures (estimated at 6-8% of the plot) is offset by the intensive use of embankments as biomass production support (grasses, legumes, banana trees, shrubs).
-The vegetalized structures help reducing the effects of soil erosion, avoiding further loss of fertility (through better nutrient and water retention and due to the presence of leguminous plants on the structures).
-Fodder production benefits to all categories of families. Intensive fodder cultivation on anti-erosive embankments (where the fertility is maximal) proved extremely profitable for the families.
-Fodder production also benefits to women and young girls by reducing the burden on gleaning natural grass.
-The decrease of the pressure on Enset plantation, usually overexploited for cattle breeding in the dry season, brings a positive effect on human food security. Enset is a key element for those smallholders’ farmers in terms of food reserves, shade generation or protection against wind and drying of soils. Enset plantation is an objective marker of poverty: the poorer the family, the smaller the number of Ensets…
Since 2006, this model has been successfully tested and duplicated in more than 200 micro catchments, each of them involving on average 80 families (which represent about 100 000 people in total).
External connections
The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has established an office in each district with a network of Development Agents (DAs) assigned at field level. Since the beginning, we have opted to closely collaborate with them. The original reluctance of the Ethiopian State towards private enterprises and civil society organizations prevented the local agents of the MoA to naturally recognize the "Iddirs" as key stakeholder resource. Some agents were nevertheless convinced of the great interest to rely on Iddirs to coordinate operations and help their communities to control open grazing. The results have been remarkable in the Kembatta area, where institutional agents have adopted the main technical options and developed similar activities in the neighboring areas.
Ilri (International Livestock Research Institute) has been following our projects since 2010 and has been playing a key role in providing technical advice and promoting the solution. For the Research Centers, the targeted sites have gradually become references showing "in situ" the relevance of integrating fodder production and soil & water conservation. Ilri has also pushed us to be actively involved in the Rising Africa initiative.
RCBDIA, an Ethiopian NGO created in 2006, has taken over the diffusion of the solution in Wolayta Zone and is now extending it to new districts, with the plan to upscale the model in the huge Zone of Gamo Gofa. They have played a key role in convincing and involving local institutions.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
The local farming system is based on rain fed agriculture and cattle breeding. The first cropping season (February to April) is critical for farmers’ food security, as it determines the following two successive and complementary harvests, as well as the distribution of farm productions all year long. A progressive weakening of the farming system and family resilience has been observed, with continuous land fragmentation, leading to overexploitation and declining soil fertility.
Climate change, accompanied by higher rainfall variability, repeated droughts (longer dry periods) and intensive erosion (intense rainfall events in the rainy season in an environment with steep topography), has exacerbated the farmers’ already difficult situation, especially during the first cropping season, with recurrent food and fodder shortages during the year. Fodder sources scarcity has resulted in a worsened competition between human beings and cattle over existing resources.
Describe the context in which you are operating
The targeted districts, Kembatta and Wolayta, belong to the poorest and most populated rural areas of the country (2,3 million people). Geographic isolation, heavy demographical pressure and acute rural poverty are some of the major socio-economic determinants in these districts, which have been hit by recurrent food shortages for the last 20 years.
The main stakes of the south-Ethiopian Rural Paradigm are described below.
- The role of demographic density (mainly due to closely spaced and unplanned pregnancies) in chronic food insecurity is blatant.
- The precarious equilibrium between basic needs and existing resources is also jeopardized by a dramatic reduction in land surfaces (land splitting up process between the male heirs and erosion).
- Farmers depend to a very large extent on animal traction. However, maintaining cattle has become more and more difficult in a context of land and fodder acute shortage.
- Although vital for both people and livestock, water coverage in targeted areas is particularly low.
-The absence of any locally rooted structured organization of producers makes the elaboration of organized responses difficult.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
From 2004 to 2015, 13,960 farmers adopted the practice, constructing and vegetalizing a total of 2,067 km anti-erosive structures. In 2016, 3,200 farmers were actively involved in the protection of their lands, with a total of 250km of anti-erosive structures built and vegetated during the year, equivalent to the protection of about 316 hectares of arable lands, and more than 3,000 family nurseries were created for the introduction, multiplication and diffusion of interesting varieties (fodder grasses, leguminous plants and trees, pigeon & cow pea...), which have mechanically contributed to increase biodiversity.
Different pilot initiatives have also been developed with interested farmers (400 farmers) and the project team has developed a network of "relay farmers" to facilitate the dissemination of the new practices that are showing potential, for example:
- The establishment of permanent fodder production plots combining perennial grasses and legumes (Pennisetum riparium and Desmodium);
- Legume fodder cropping under coffee trees;
- Green manure using vesce or lupin in high altitude.
Language(s)
English, French and Ethiopian local dialects (in the intervention zones)
Water
Since 1988, more than 1,200 gravity flow systems have been built for more than 386,000 new users. In 2016, 100 water points were built for 30,000 new users and the number of families equipped with a latrine reached more than 90%. A specific model for the maintenance and repair of existing water supply infrastructures has been developed in strong collaboration with the Federation of Water Associations and the water local institutions.
Food Security/Nutrition
Planting grass on anti-erosive structures increases the economic value of the field. The yearly average of fodder market value for 1m² of grass was 22ETB in 2015. On average, the grass fodder production value of a farm is 303 euros per year. Access to improved animals: 21 % of the families have purchased at least one improved breed. With fodder availability, animal fattening is getting much more common, resulting in higher levels of milk production.
Economic/Sustainable Development
Fodder production is a new income source, which may facilitate farmers’ access to improved seeds and fertilizer and enables livestock restocking. The total average grass fodder production is 303m², meaning that farmers have gradually increased their own production besides the physical support of anti-erosive structures: on dedicated perennial fodder production plots (18%); around the field (14%); at the foot of hedges (8%), under trees (3%).
Climate
Measuring the impact of the vegetated structures on the soil are beyond the scope of our study. The effects on mitigating the consequences of intense rainfall events are however well documented. Beyond these probable effects, the integration of drought resistant grass and leguminous species on anti-erosive structures introduces new fodder and food resources and has a positive impact on the use of the Ensete ventricosum leaves by animals, which is a crucial element for families' food security.
Sustainability
Planting grass on anti-erosive structures increases the economic value of the field. Without considering the possible effects on soil fertility, a field equipped with vegetated anti-erosive structures provides more income than without, despite the loss of surface taken by the structures (the increase in the field gross value is estimated at 20% per season). This impact had a trigger effect in stimulating many farmers to invest time and energy to build the structures and multiply grass. Assessments in sites where the first intervention took place 10 years ago showed that 93% of the farmers have continued to develop fodder production in their farm autonomously, without requiring any external grant or support.
Return on investment
Implementation costs are limited (less than 15€/family), mainly including : organization of exchange visits between farmers and local institutions; provision of tools; trainings; initial planting. This issue of distributing (new) vegetative material to a large number of families represents a major bottleneck, as it is costly and logistically constraining, especially in mountainous areas. Involving farmers in the propagation of vegetative planting materials in backyard nurseries has shown very effective and has largely improved the average survival rates of the plants after transplantation, reaching more than 90%. The return on investment is quick as fodder plants start to produce just 6 months after planted.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Scale-up necessitates several conditions:
Reproducibility from one area to another without significant loss of effectiveness: the fact that more than 15 000 farmers have adopted the technique in 6 zones shows the potential for extension in Ethiopia.
Efficiency, which usually requires a reduction in unit costs: strengthening the ownership of institutional stakeholders on technical and organizational features is our strategy ; recent geographical extensions were deliberately made with reduced staff to rely on institutional agents as relay actors.
Transferability of the methods through resource actors (traditional Iddirs, Peer farmers and MoA Agents) contribute to minimize project inputs while reaching more farmers.
Leverage effects: improving the visibility of the solution, increasing exchange visits in referent sites, setup of fodder demonstration and multiplication plot in Farmer Training Centers, raising the interest of a higher number of stakeholders.