Challenges and resilience of an indigenous farming system during wartime (Tigray, North Ethiopia)

Abstract

Due to war conditions, the local farmers had to largely rely on their own crop production, mainly by subsistence farming, in Tigray, North Ethiopia. We assessed the crop stands in 2021 and evaluated the level of resilience of the indigenous farming system. Quantitative data were collected from 161 farm parcels in various ecoregions of this tropical mountain region, in order to detect the share of sown land, crop types, and their status. This participatory monitoring was accompanied by semi-structured interviews. Farmers cultivated their farms late, left it uncultivated or marginally sowed oil crops as improved fallow (28%), due to lack of farming tools, oxen, fertilizer, seeds, or manpower. As compared to peace years, only few lands were sown with sorghum as there was active warfare in the sorghum planting period. The relatively good stands of wheat and barley (47%) are in line with the farmers’ priority given to cereals. Teff got a large land share because it could be sown up to the middle of the main rainy season and because farmers had consumed the seeds of their major cereal crops (wheat and barley) when hiding for warfare. Seeds left from consumption were only sown by late June, when troops had retreated, and the communities could revive. With almost no external support, the local farming system has proven to be remarkably resilient, relying on indigenous knowledge and local practices, block rotation, manure, improved fallow, changes in relative importance of crops, seed exchange, and support for one another. This is the first analysis of the socio-agronomic roots of the 2021–2022 Tigray hunger crisis, with a cereal harvest that could not at all sustain the local population as the planting season had been largely missed. The ability of the indigenous farming system to partially rebounce in times of autarky is another novel finding.

Crop area change in the context of civil war in Tigray, Ethiopia

“…Strategies employed included planting shorter season crops, crops requiring less human labor, plowing in the night or when soldiers were away, and an enhancement of communal activity-sharing plowing oxen and labor. Aspects of the Ghebreyohannes et al (2022) study corroborate the Nyssen et al (2022) interviews. Their ground reference data were acquired in the East, Southeast, and Mekele Special AU-2 units, and 25% of the fields designated as good crop attained a maximum greenness under 0.35 (figure 5), so fields were not necessarily abandoned, but productivity would have been low.…”

“…Peak 2021 growing season GV medians were 0.24, 0.37, 0.40, 0.41 for the fallow, poor, medium, and good classes of Ghebreyohannes et al (2022), respectively (figure 5, table 5). Examining these same fields in prior years show minimal differences between them, median values, averaged from 2017-2020, were 0.39, 0.42, 0.44, 0.43 for the 2021 fallow, poor, medium, and good classes, respectively.…”

“…Subsequent to the analysis presented above we obtained a data set of 160 fields assessed for crop status (36 fallow, 66 poor, 10 medium, 48 good) collected in August of 2021 in eastern Tigray in the vicinity of the capital of Mekele (Ghebreyohannes et al 2022). The ground-based crop field assessment was performed such that fields whose status was relatively homogeneous at 30 m were selected.…”

Smallholder Farmers' Use of Indigenous Knowledge Practices in Agri-food Systems: Contribution of Food Security Attainment Drive

“…Building on the case studies, examples from Ethiopia demonstrate the efficacy of indigenous agricultural knowledge and practices in enhancing food security. In the Ethiopian highlands, farmers employ traditional terracing techniques to prevent soil erosion and conserve water, allowing for more efficient agricultural practices by the farmers [27,50] . The incorporation of livestock into cropping systems, another indigenous practice, provides additional benefits through manure production and draft power, contributing to sustainable farming [50] .…”

Eyes in the sky on Tigray - Monitoring the impact of armed conflict on cultivated land using satellite imagery in Ethiopia

“…The data included plot geolocation, crop type, qualitative crop status of the plot (poorly cultivated, well cultivated, medium cultivated, fallow and fallow with weeds) and nearby farmlands. Additionally similar spatially explicit data set on crop status of 262 farm plots were collected at the end of August 2022 from the same six districts (Ghebreyohannes et al, 2022b).…”