Local ecological knowledge of trees on farms, constraints and opportunities for further integratino in Tigray Region, northern Ethiopia: A Case Study of smallholder farmers in Abreha Wa Atsbeha and Adi Gudom

Background

The paper compared two Ethiopian sites with differing levels of on-farm tree adoption: Abreha we Atsbeha (high adoption) and Adi Gudom (low adoption). The author used a knowledge-based systems approach involving participatory rural appraisal, focus group discussions, and semi-structured interviews.  In both sites, farmers planted trees on their holdings for income generation, user rights, and direct benefits, and they planted trees on communal lands to comply with government policies, improve soil fertility and water harvesting, improve land for redistribution, and improve aesthetics. 

Conclusions & Takeaways

In AWA, farmers listed poverty as their main driver for planting trees on their own farms, and drought, perceived benefits from earlier projects, and community leadership as drivers to planting trees in the landscape, while in AG scarcity of wood products was the main driver of on-farm tree planting, and wildlife conservation and livestock forage were drivers at the landscape scale.  Both sites faced on-farm tree-planting barriers of small farm soze, negative interaction among components, lack of water during establishment stages, desire for unobstructed plowing, and inability to fence young seedlings for lack of fencing materials, while lack of water was the main barrier for planting trees in the landscape.  In AG, free grazing, vandalism, and lack of labor, knowledge, and access to seedlings were barriers to on-farm tree planting, while free grazing and vandalism were barriers at the landscape scale.