During the 2021 conflict in Tigray (north Ethiopia), crop cultivation has been hampered by warfare. Oxen have been looted and killed, farm inputs and tools destroyed by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Farmers felt vulnerable out in the open with their oxen. To produce, farmers evaluated risks involved with ploughing and organised lookouts. Overall, a large part of the land had been tilled in difficult conditions, and crops sown that require minimal management, without fertiliser, what led to low yields. True Colour Composite images, produced from Sentinel satellite imagery show that smallholder irrigation schemes were operational. There was a shift from commercial crops to cereals. The situation in western Tigray was particular, as there has been ethnic cleansing of the population and often the 2020 rainfed crops had even not been harvested. Overall, our findings show that the Tigrayan smallholder farming system is resilient, thanks to community self-organisation, combining common strategies of agrarian societies in wartime: spatio-temporal shift in agricultural activities to avoid the proximity with soldiers and shifts in crop types. Rather unique is the relying on communal aid, while the blockade of the Tigray region made that outmigration and off-farm income were no options for the farmers.
This study aims at characterizing agricultural drought in Ethiopia and understanding the effects of drought on crop yield. Monthly, seasonal and annual Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) values were calculated using MODIS (MOD13Q1) from the year 2003 to 2017. The relationships between NDVI, VCI, and crop yield were examined to predict the possibility of drought impacts on crop productivity. We found that VCI and NDVI data provides consistent and spatially explicit information for operational drought monitoring in Ethiopia. Results also indicated that the most extreme agricultural drought in recent years occurred in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, and 2015. These findings also show that mild to severe droughts have a great chance of occurrence in Ethiopia. However, only severe drought has significant impacts on crops. The food crops yield data used in this study include cereals, legumes, and tubers. It was observed that cereals such as (Zea mays), teff (Eragrostis tef), haricot beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) are more sensitive to agricultural drought when compared to the tubers such as sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) and taro (Colocasia esculenta). Thus, drought preparedness programs need to pay more attention to the cultivation of these crops under severe drought conditions.
HIGHLIGHTSNDVI and VCI patterns easily discriminate cereals and legumes when compared to tuber crops. 45% and 43% yield variability of respectively teff and maize is explained by the NDVI patterns. The studied crops (Teff, Maize, Sweet potato and Taro) are less discriminable to seasonal VCI variation.
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