T is for Tigray
Date: 8 October 2014
The Tigray project is a sustainable development project that started in Tigray, northern Ethiopia in 1996. The focus of the project is community-based land management and rehabilitation to improve crop production and the livelihoods of local farmers. Originally this was done by offering farmers a ‘basket of choices’ of trainings that they could be involved with as an entry point for the project. These included making and using compost, planting multipurpose trees, water harvesting, and building ponds. When researchers examined the difference between using composting and chemical fertiliser on plots over a number of years, they discovered that average yields on composted plots were as good as or higher than those which used chemical fertiliser.
Another effect of the Tigray project was that farmers who previously only grew wheat, barley and local grain teff, were now growing maize and beans as part of a mixed farming system. Agricultural biodiversity in the area increased, and due to the regular addition of compost, the fertility and quality of the soil farmers were working with also improved. Another advantage of compost is that it only needs to be applied once every few years (compared to chemical fertiliser which needs to be applied yearly), and this has meant that many farmers have been able to get out of debt: chemical fertiliser is expensive!
Photo: A hillside farm in the Tigray region, Ethiopia. Credit: A.Davey
The A-Z of Food Sovereignty in Africa shows the positive alternatives to corporate-led agriculture. A new letter was posted each day in the lead up to World Food Day arrived on 16 October 2014.
Africa’s small-scale food producers already know how to produce enough food sustainably to feed themselves but the political and economic rules which govern the food system are set against them. These rules are written by and for multinational companies and political elites, in support of a global food system that benefits them rather than the millions of smallholders and family farmers who produce the food and get little in return.
