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On the main road from Hawassa to the border town of Moyale,
one crosses the Gedeo Zone, arguably the greenest of
all regions in the Southern Regional State. Except
for Dilla and Yirga Cheffe, the two major towns of
the zone, most of the area is covered with
woodlands, coffee and false banana(enset). The
greenery, however, masks the misery of the residents
in the zone.
Genjo Bonja, 80, who has lived his entire life in the
Wonago Wereda, has raised his five children on the
produce of the one hectare of land his family
occupied. When two of his children married, he had
to share his land with them, leaving less than half
a hectare to himself and the rest of the family.
That land is no longer enough to sustain the family.
The problem of land shortage for the locals is
exacerbated by children returning to their parents
after school, and remaining dependent on their
parents.
"There has to be a mechanism to stop children from
returning to their parents and sharing their
resources," says Negash Teklu, executive director of
the Consortium for Integration of Population, Health
and Environment (CIPHE) in Ethiopia.
Genjo's land is covered with coffee and indigenous trees
that offer shade to the coffee trees. The house is
surrounded by false banana plants. The family feeds
on kocho, made from the roots of the false
banana plants, and maize which they buy from the
market after selling coffee from their farm. The
past five years have been characterized by erratic
rains, which have led to a decline in the coffee
harvested from the farm.
"Last year, we had little coffee because there was
no rain. This year, too, the rains skipped the rainy
season and fell in September," Genjo said.
The September rains had helped some of the berries
to ripen, but then disease struck the plants.
"We were told not to use chemicals, so we are losing
our coffee to ‘cholera,’" he said.
‘Cholera’ is a name they have given to a disease which
makes the green berries drop before they are mature.
The better life that he once knew has been messed up
during the past five years. He wanted to start
growing food grains, but he could not find any free
land in the area.
Genjo's experiences are shared by Deyana Medasha. The
60-year-old farmer has fathered 14 children from his
two wives, and still wants to have more children.
"If my first two children had not died, I would have had 16
children," he says, sadly.
Deyana has divided his one hectare land in half, where he
built separate houses for each wife on each half.
Both halves are, however, covered with coffee plants
and trees that provide shade. He, too, is worried.
"Our coffee is affected by disease," he said. "I was
not able to collect any berries last year. I am now
very much concerned that the plants are affected by
disease. I was hoping to be able to collect some
berries this year."
Deyana believes that what little rain fell in
September was a result of the prayers they offered
to their creator through their traditional faith
leader.
Previously, when they saw signs of disease on their
plantations, they used pesticides. This year, the
farmers say they have not sprayed any chemicals on
their plants. The reason is the insistence of coffee
buyers that no chemicals be used to maintain the
organic quality of the coffee. Japan, a major buyer
of Ethiopia coffee, had created a lot of concern in
Ethiopia when it stopped buying, complaining that it
had found traces of chemicals in the coffee it
imported.
Failing rains, disease and shortage of land for food
crops are common for the farmers in Wonago.
Two coffee diseases have been identified in the
area, according to a study by Sustainable Land Use
Forum (SLUF). Locals call them ‘tetie’ and
‘cholera’. The first is caused by mealy bugs and
destroys the roots, eventually killing the plants.
There were 820,944 people living in the Gedeo Zone,
as of the 2007 census.
"The land is congested with people; there could be a green
hunger," says Zerihun Woldu, professor of Plant
Ecology at the Addis Abeba University and board
member of CIPHE. "The land is so insufficient for
the population that it can no longer feed the
people."
In 2005, the zone accounted for 63pc of all coffee
collected from the Southern Regional State and 28pc
of the national output. The farmers claim that their
coffee, which is sold under the Yirgacheffe brand,
is decreasing from year to year; the Bureau of
Agriculture and Rural development differs.
"We have done a survey which showed that there is abundant
produce in the zone this year," said Gezahegn
Alemayehu, marketing department head with the
bureau.
A study by SLUF indicates that the landholding in the zone
is becoming increasing fragmented.
"This is mainly attributed to the high population density
and growth rates in the area. Moreover, the strictly
drawn ethnic group-based boundary demarcations do
not allow the free migration of people from
overpopulated areas to sparsely populated areas,"
says the study.
The Gedeo Zone is the most congested area in the region,
according to Abera Mulat, owner and head of the
Natural Resources Administration and Environmental
Protection Process of the regional Bureau of
Agriculture and Rural Development. A thousand people
live in a one square kilometre area in Gedeo,
followed by 700 people in Wolayta and Hadiya zones.
The forum recommended resettling people from the zone to
other less sparsely populated zones or even regions.
It has indicated urbanization as one of the
alternatives to doing that.
"It is possible to reduce the pressure on the land by
expanding industry and services," SLUF said.
Abera adds that there is a plan in the region to decrease
the population pressure by employing people in road
construction, bamboo development, and small
enterprise.
This writer visited the area last week and witnessed false
banana plants growing even in the ditches on each
side of roads which are supposed to be for flood
control. There is little grazing area and few cattle
around grazing mostly in the forest. Food crops,
too, are planted and grown in the forests.
The regional government wants rich countries to
realize the role of the area in controlling carbon
emissions.
"Gedeo
plays a big role in controlling climate change. The
outside world has to take that into consideration
and cooperate to resolve the problems of the area,"
said Teshome Tilahun, chief executive assistant to
Shiferaw Shigute, president of the Southern Regional
State.
The participants of workshop by CIPHE called for an
integrated approach to solve the problems of the
zone.
"Population, health and environment have to be
integrated, and the resources of the area and the
number of people living on those resources has to be
matched," said Negash.
Meanhwile, Genjo and Deyana are receiving government
food aid which amounted to 15kg per head. Deyana,
the father of 14, is grateful, but not satisfied.
"We are thankful that they have given us the aid,"
he said, "but it is too small."
Deyana is hardly aware of how much of a problem he
has caused by the large size of his family. Along
with other measures, a lot of work has to be done to
teach the communities in the zone about family
planning, Negash says. |
