Members of the Sirba Abay irrigation users’ group gather in the shade of their new farmers’ training centre to discuss how irrigation has improved their incomes and nutrition.

Irrigation project means year-round food, and more

A Canadian government-supported project has led to 
impressive gains in yields, and in health of the local population

Vegetables were once a rarity in this community located three hours northeast of Asosa in the remote Benishangul-Gumuz region of Western Ethiopia. If onions, potatoes and tomatoes were available at all, they had travelled a long distance and been on at least three trucks. They were expensive, often prohibitively so, and poor quality. Two of

soil

Editorial: They brought in plows?

When a consortium of Canadian non-government organizations funded by the Canadian government arrived in the Benishangul-Gumuz state in Western Ethiopia five years ago, their primary goal was to help smallholder farmers boost productivity and food security. They came in with “modern” farming methods. In this context, that meant oxen and plows, showing farmers how to


Irrigation on a farm in Ethiopia

Delivering the water of life

Cash crops often replace food crops in farming

It was almost 30 years ago, but the engineer who brought water to Bila remembers well the people’s plight prior to irrigation. Many were refugees who had been repatriated after the Ethiopia-Somalian war. They were given a piece of canvas for shelter, a shovel, pickaxe, a goat and a cart — and told to start over.

African family

Project shows link between healthy soils and healthy people

A unique project is improving nutrition and incomes through better farming practices

A little yellow seed is sprouting big changes for farming families here in the Great Rift Valley, within reach of the Hawassa University extension services. Chickpeas grown as a double crop after maize are boosting families’ nutrition, providing extra income and helping improve the soils. Farmers here have traditionally grown one crop of maize, tef


man holding crank-powered radio in Africa

Radio programs help improve crops in Africa

Farm Radio International broadcasts information relevant to farmers throughout Africa

Japhet Emmanuel was 10 years old when his father introduced him to radio. This was the best way to learn English, assured his father. So every evening the young Tanzanian man would sit next to the small black radio listening to the one English program. “BBC World Service,” he deepened his voice to sound like

Sights, sounds and smells in a far-off land

The sun was just peeking above the horizon as the Boeing 777 banked south just over Cairo, Egypt and headed for Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital that serves as the hub for all of Africa. We’d been travelling ahead in time, losing a night as we left Washington, D.C. at around 11 a.m. on Saturday,


Without January rains, one of two heifers will be sold

Co-operator editor Laura Rance is travelling on a media food study tour with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Updates are being posted on the Co-operator website at www.manitobacooperator.ca. The highway southwest of Addis Ababa to Wolayto-Soddo is wide and smooth, but there is no such thing in Ethiopia as setting the cruise control and just cruising,

Update From East Africa: People Pushed To The Brink

Canadian Foodgrains Bank executive director Jim Cornelius is on a study leave in Kenya and Ethiopia. Last week he sent this observation from southern Ethiopia, which is experiencing its worst food crisis in 60 years. Unlike the major Ethiopia famines in 1972 and 1984, which were concentrated in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, this food


East Africa Seen Needing Billion-Dollar Food Fund

The United Nations’ emergency food aid agency needs US$1 billion to feed 20 million people in east Africa over the next six months, it said Nov. 18. Around half of that money is needed for Ethiopia alone, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, director of emergencies at the World Food Program, said on the sidelines of a