SNNPR Livelihood Zone

Transcription

1 SNNPR Livelihood Zone Gamo-Gofa Maize and Root Crop Zone June Zone Description This is a highly food insecure livelihood zone, due chiefly to rainfall problems frequently affecting maize (which is the main food crop); land shortage; trypanosomiasis endemic in most of the area; and poor roads and market access. In addition, the poor coverage of services, including schools and clinics, is a serious problem in this zone. Gamo-Gofa Maize and Root Crop Livelihood Zone comprises the best part of seven woredas in Gamo Gofa Administrative Zone. These are Gofa Zuria, Kucha, Boreda, Mirab Abaya, Arba Minch Zuria, Chencha,Dita, Daremalo, Kemba, Binke,& Zala woredas. The ecology is midland (woina dega) and upper lowland, with altitudes of about meters above see level and a hilly or undulating topography. There is sparse natural vegetation where land is not in farm use. There are two distinct rainy seasons: the smaller one is the belg, in February and March. The main rains are in the meher season from July to September. The maize cycle straddles both seasons, whilst teff is a shorter cycle crop depending only on the meher, and therefore ers an important second chance for those who can grow it when the belg season fails. Sweet potatoes are a particularly important crop, because two harvests per year can be got, with the principal one in the dry season of November-January; but the second, smaller harvest breaks the annual hunger period in May-June. Beyond that there is substantial consumption of green maize until the mature maize harvest from September. The staple foods are in order of amount consumed: maize, enset, sweet potatoes, taro, teff and yams. The dual dependency on cereals and perennial/root crops ers some insurance against at least moderate rain failure, since maize is more susceptible than either root crops or enset to long breaks between showers and/or overall moisture deficit. There is poor soil fertility, and high population density leading to relatively small holdings of arable land. Even middle wealth households usually have little more than 1 hectare, and this cannot compare in productive potential to the same amount of land in other moister and more fertile zones. Lack of grazing and fodder as well as trypanosomiasis affect oxen production, so that only the better and middle wealth group households who own all the plow-oxen are able to till the land efficiently, whilst others have to wait their turn to borrow teams of oxen. Even for middle and better households, the high prices of inputs, especially chemical fertilizers and improved seed, coupled with a lack of agricultural credit facilities, limit agricultural productivity. Not more than of farmers purchase such inputs. Against this background of chronic production problems, rain failure of some degree is a frequent occurrence, including periodic drought. In the last five years, food aid for poorer people has been a regular feature. Enset as a perennial ers a store of food, but it is a store which takes 4 or more years to fill: when trees are cut one part of the store is evidently lost for as many years as it takes for a replacement to grow. In an area of such frequent food stress, there is a high tendency for people to go beyond the long-term sustainability of the stand of enset stems. The sign is the absence of mature stems, meaning that immature stems may well also be progressively cut. The land may then be used for annual crops, but an important food security store is lost. Most households possess goats (there are fewer sheep) and poultry, but livestock numbers are modest amongst all households: even the better are not serious herders, possessing only a handful of cows and their young. However, they do possess up to two teams of oxen, and this gives them not only draft power for their own land but the potential to 1 Fieldwork for the current profile was undertaken in June The information presented refers to the consumption year from July 2003 to June 2004 (or Hamle 1995 Sene 1996 in the Ethiopian calendar), which was a relatively average year by local standards (i.e. a year that was neither especially good nor especially bad in terms of food security, when judged in the context of recent years). Provided there are no fundamental and rapid shifts in the economy, the information in this profile is expected to remain valid for approximately five years (i.e. until 2010).

2 profit from lending out a team to ox-less farmers in return for labor on the ox-owner s land, or a share in the borrower s harvest and fodder from residues. The need to find scarce grazing and mainly to hand-feed cattle with fodder means that keeping even small numbers of cattle requires real labor. So often does watering, since water sources are scattered and scarce in the dry months. There is an arrangement called yerbee whereby very poor and poor households care for one or two cows, sometimes other animals, for better farmers. In return they are allowed some or all of the milk and an agreed share in surviving progeny. The benefit for the herder is clear, as is the incentive to keep the animals in good shape as milk producers and as successful breeders. For the livestock owner this may represent an opportunity-cost calculation about the alternative use of labor within his family; it may also to some extent represent a kind of helping hand to very poor neighbors or kin. The main cash-earner in the zone is maize, for those with some surplus but also for those whom pressing obligations force to sell part of their meagre crop immediately after harvest when prices are relatively low; the same people will then have to purchase maize at higher prices later in the year. Cee is the one pure cash crop of any importance, but numbers of bushes maintained are modest, partly because of land shortage, partly because this is not the most favourable environment for cee production. There is insufficient labor demand within the zone s localities to answer the cash needs of poor and very poor households, and a good number of people even in normal years go on work migration, notably on state farms in Jinka, Awash, Shashamene and Ziway, from which they may return after three months with ETB in their pocket. Some people travel to work in gold mining at Dodola in southern Oromiya. Markets Poor market access is the most general situation for households around the zone. This is because of a modest and poorquality road network and the remoteness of much of the population in the hills of this difficult terrain. The zone is a comparatively modest exporter of produce: mainly maize and some teff, and cee and butter, but very few livestock. Staples and livestock/livestock products are more actively traded within the zone, including sweet potatoes and enset in prepared forms. The external markets to which produce goes are in Wolayita or the big regional collection market of Shashamene, especially in the maize harvest months of October to December. There is some fattening of cattle for sale, and Addis Ababa is a market for these especially during religious festival times, via Wolayita. In the lean months, grain comes in from Gumayde, and from Basketo in the Special Woredas and Melekosa woreda within Gamo Gofa Administrative Zone. The zone also functions for these latter, as well as South Omo Administrative Zone, as an intermediate market area for produce from those isolated woreda passing through to bigger markets. Within the zone there are usually three market days per week at the bigger markets and in addition two further days of localised markets in the vicinity of kebeles where much petty trading is done. Within the zone the main markets are at Sawla, Selam Ber in Kucha, Arba Minch town, Tocha in Boreda, and in Zala woreda. Seasonal Calendar 2 Seasons Crops Legend Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Belg Meher land prep. planting cons. green harvest Maize Teff Sweet potato (1) Sweet potato (2) Other Purchase Peak milking Food shortage Malaria Local/migrant casual laboring local local migrant/local The calendar shows the annual cycle, which does not affect enset as a perennial. Enset can be cut and prepared all year round, although it cannot be instantly consumed because the preparation mostly requires fermentation for up to three months. The second sweet potato harvest is crucial as it comes in the lean, dry months of May and June. If there is a sweet potato shortage, then enset is the next recourse. Poor and very poor household members may leave for migrant work in November, if they cannot find local harvest work. Given the small land they cultivate, and their propensity to consume much of the maize green, their own mature maize harvest can be collected by other family members.

3 3 Wealth Breakdown Wealth Group Information HH size Land area cultivated Perennial crops Livestock Other Very Poor ha 5 cee bushes, 25 immature enset trees 0-1 goat 2 cows on yerbee, 4 hens Poor ha 10 cee bushes, 40 immature enset trees 2-4 goats, 1 cow 1 cow on yerbee, 4 hens Middle ha Better ha 1 3 % of population 20 cee bushes, 10 mature enset trees, 50 immature enset trees 40 cee bushes, 15 mature enset trees, 75 immature enset trees 4 goats, 2-3 cattle, 1 ox 6 hens 6 goats, 5 cattle, 2-4 oxen 1 donkey, 6 hens *Yerbee is a system whereby a poor person cares for livestock of a better person, and in return is allowed some or all of the milk and a share in the progeny. Sources of Food An average year ( ) Even in a relatively average production year, the reference year of , fewer than one in five of households namely the better were able to obtain sufficient staple food from their land. In the case of the better, purchases were of preferred foods, including for instance extra teff and meat. At the other end of the scale, for the very poor, especially, food aid filled a near 1 gap in terms of their calorie requirement. They were unable to obtain more than half of their requirement from the fields, in their case, as with the poor, more from root crops than from maize. From their yerbee cows they obtained only about 1% of their calories from skimmed milk, which however is a good source of animal protein: the fat went to making butter for sale. The very poor and poor respectively obtained a substantial 1 6 Very poor Poor Middle Better food aid purchase payment in kind livestock products own crops Food access is expressed as a percentage of minimum food requirements, taken as an average food energy intake of 2100 kcals per person per day. amount of their requirement from casual employment. Payment in kind, which made up a part of this, can be convenient where people are isolated from markets or when grain prices are seasonally high.

4 4 Sources of Cash An average year ( ) The graph provides a breakdown of total cash income according to income source. 6 Annual income (ETB) Very Poor Poor Middle Better Expenditure Patterns An average year ( ) In the reference year, expenditure on staple food clearly followed inversely the trajectory of the proportion of food obtained from own crops see the food sources graph above. The proportion of expenditure would be significantly higher for the very poor and poor if they hadn t received substantial payment in kind for casual work. Agricultural inputs formed the biggest proportion of the expenditure of the better, and it is somewhat surprising that the result does not show more clearly in the sources of cash income graph above. But it is true that they look to cee for a part of their income, and this was not a good year for cee production. It is notable that household items (HH) are a big cost for all households; they include cee, salt, soap, and kerosene, while other includes tax, social obligations and ceremonies. The middle and better households spend proportionately petty trade self-employment casual employment livestock sales livestock product sales crop sales 6 The reference year of was climatically average, and it is striking that no wealth group made even half of their earnings form crop sales a hint in itself of underlying food insecurity. The year was average for livestock as well, and both the better and middle households obtained the largest proportion of their income from livestock sales. Milk production would have been somewhat more than usual. One striking element of the graphic is the sales of dairy products by poorer people largely in the form of butter. This should not be exaggerated the absolute cash value of such sales by the better was nearly four times that of the sales by poor and very poor people. Nevertheless, these sales do usually form an important part of the earnings of the poorer households, and are mainly the result of the yerbee system described earlier, which is a form of redistribution of livestock benefits within the community. Self-employment in this case means essentially collecting and selling firewood and fodder grasses. V.Poor Poor Middle Better other clothes social serv. inputs water HH items non-staple food staple food The graph provides a breakdown of total cash expenditure according to category of expenditure. as well as absolutely more than the others on social services which include school and medicine costs. The relatively poor coverage with these services is likely to mean extra expenditure for instance on keeping children in town where there is a school and on travel to centres for other services. Hazards Frequent rainfall problems both in absolute amount and in distribution over the season. Pest damage maize and root crops, including Trypanosomiasis which constantly reduces cattle numbers and condition Market price fluctuations: especially hikes in maize prices (including grain imported from other areas suffering drought or other problems) during the purchasing months from March; steep dips cee selling prices in response to world market movements have had an effect, but the zone is only a very moderate cee producer Malaria: endemic and highly prevalent especially in the months immediately after the rainy seasons; epidemic outbreaks of a virulent form have caused unusually high mortality in some years

5 5 Response Strategies There is a clear difference in how different wealth groups are able to respond to acute hazards which reduce production. The middle and better sell more livestock, including young cattle. Sales of milking cows and oxen are only done in extreme need. Increased dependence upon profits from petty trade is another recourse, but it is of limited scope since it requires considerable effort and in bad years there is less trade activity and a smaller margin of profit. The very poor and poor have minimal livestock assets of their own, so that if they sell animals they can easily finish their entire holding. Increased casual work is a first option, but local conditions may reduce the demand for agricultural labor. Other local possibilities are few: increased firewood and grass sales are possible but limited by demand for the wood and availability of collectible grasses and field residues in bad year. Some people take credit if they have the trust of better neighbours or kin. Otherwise, people must look increased work migration to state farms as far away as Awash, or to bigger towns, or for some to the gold mining area in southern Oromiya. Indicators of Imminent Crisis Season Month Indicator Jan High market price of staple cereals Feb Late onset of belg rains: poor/delayed land preparation; delayed maize sowing Belg March D elayed m aize germ ination season April Poor rainfall distribution: poor maize germination and growth May Lack of m oisture for m aize; pest incidence Jun July Late onset of m eher rains; poor rainfall; stalk borer on m aize; poor land preparation for teff Meher Aug Late teff sowing; delay of green maize for consumption season Sept P oor rain for m aize m aturing Oct Excess rain at m aize harvest; occurrence of sweet potato butterfly Nov Excess rain at m aize and teff harvest; occurrence of sweet potato butterfly Dec High market price of staple cereals The amount and distribution of rainfall is the crucial indicator of coming problems for crops: very early warning can come from poor land preparation for sowing cereals. Pest infestation is an important intermediate to late indicator.