FTM-July2017-Issuu

SOIL DEGRADATION AND SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT IN ETHIOPIA
Ethiopia is notable among African nations for its issues of soil
degradation. In Addis Ababa, leading up to the workshop, the local
weekly paper, Capital, featured no less than five articles on climate
change, carbon taxes, and sustainable development. Clearly there
is an appetite in Ethiopia to know more about sustainable lifestyles,
production practices, and ways of doing business.
Launching into the workshop, Hussen Ahmed, director of Soil &
More Ethiopia, explains the challenges facing Ethiopian soils, the
critical elements for achieving soil recovery, and the basic steps to
creating well-balanced compost to the benefit of micro-biological
life in the soil.
Everyone is eager to put the theory into practice. Farmers jump at the
few available hoes and shovels to level the designated space for the
compost windrow. They gather the needed green materials rich in
nitrogen and ideal for cultivating beneficial bacteria.
Ethiopia, considered the birthplace of coffee, is home to
more than 6,000 naturally occurring coffee varietals growing
under forest canopies across the country. According to popular
legend, coffee was discovered in the 10th century when Kaldi, an
Abyssinian goat herder, observed unusual dancing behaviour
after his goats ate the bright red berries from a coffee bush.
After trying the raw cherries himself, Kaldi went to a
nearby monastery in order to share this “heavenly fruit.” But
Kaldi’s coffee offering was not embraced by the monks with
the same delight. Instead, they called it “the Devil’s work” and
tossed the fruit into the fire. It was only with the enchanting
aroma of the roasted beans that the monks gave coffee a second
chance, and the rest is history.
Farmers left to support themselves
Today some 15 million Ethiopians live off of the production and
harvest of coffee, or buna as it is called in the local Amharic
language. The vast majority of Ethiopian coffee farmers are
small-scale, sustaining themselves on less than two hectares
of land. With the relatively high cost of chemical inputs and the
extremely low average annual family income of less than US$600
per year, Ethiopian coffee farmers must produce organically,
either as part of a certified control system or by default.
But despite the important role organic coffee plays in the
economic life of the country, farmers often lack the technical
training and support necessary for managing production
that’s not only sustainable, but also ensures competitiveness
in today’s crowded coffee markets.
“For decades the Ethiopian government has been
promoting a poor model for composting,” says Hussen Ahmed,
director of Soil & More Ethiopia. “Essentially, farmers are told
to leave organic residue in a pit one metre deep and two metres
wide for a month before tossing it into another pit of similar
size. After a total of 90 days the farmer pulls the decomposed
materials out and spreads it in his fields.”
“But this work is both back-breaking and ineffective,”
Ahmed adds. “The compost pits lack oxygen – which can
actually promote the propagation of pathogens, instead of
the beneficial bacteria we create with aerated models of
composting – such as above-ground windrows. And without
giving proper advice on how to reach the high temperatures
needed to neutralize weed seeds, a farmer can expect to see all
kinds of vegetation sprouting in his field after the compost is
applied. Again, adding additional cleanup work for the farmer.”
Co-op collaboration
Cooperative Coffees (Coop Coffees) is a North American coffee
importer with a mandate to support small-scale farmers