On-Farm Productive Water Development and Management: Greening the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

Bringing hope of food security, health and well-being to ‘Hungry Ethiopia’, the partnership between iDE in Ethiopia and Kabil from India has begun the process of transformation of small-holder families, showing them the way to self-sufficiency and growth by harnessing rainwater, introducing new techniques of cultivating crops and hand-holding them through all their challenges

A yo Gaguro of Dodicha kebele (village) becomes very emotional as she tells her story. “I was married at the age of 12 and now I am a 40-year-old widow with five sons and three daughters. I have seen this village go through very hard times. On the one hand, our village suffered from severe water scarcity (we had to walk 5 km to fetch drinking water); and, on the other, our agriculture field would get washed away during the rains. The bunds around the fields would break due to the heavy rains and the high speed of the sudden run-off water, and, later, the same field would suffer from moisture stress. The hill in the eastern side of the kebele causes the havoc.

We were the most marginalized lot in this kebele. There was a time, the year before the intervention, when I had to sow corn-seed three times because every time it got washed away. Finally, when I sowed teff seeds (a millet grown in Ethiopia and used as staple food) for the fourth time, I managed to get 50 kg of grain. Facing such food shortage was common but, in that particular year, it was severe. I coped by selling our ox for 4,000 Birr (1 Ethiopian Birr = 0.52 US$). That was not sufficient; therefore, I was forced to sell my four goats. After six months, I had no other option but to withdraw two of my sons from school and send them for daily wage labour in the investor farm, for less than the normal wage.

I was struggling against hopeless conditions. It was at that time that iDE officials and some Indian people came to visit our farm land. This was the first-ever visit by any outsider to our area. They consulted us, visited our fields and the surrounding areas, and enquired if we would be willing to participate in an effort to reduce the threat of run-off water from the hill. We were in complete doubt about what could be done because we had always lived with this problem. We agreed, albeit with some fears in our minds.