The Re-Birth of the Yewol WatershedIntegrated Watershed Management

in Ethiopia’s Northern Highlands

At 3500 meters above sea level and 445 km from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, the Yewol watershed, named after this mountain is a beautiful but harsh area to farm. The major problem was soil erosion. “It is the top soil that holds water and nutrients and that was getting washed away,” says Tilahun Amede, ICRISAT scientist. “Our question was how can we make sure that seed and fertilizer stay where they are placed.”

The solution lay in building stone terraces like these and in collective action. Though labor-intensive to build, each farmer contributed 60 days to build these structures on their farms and on those of their neighbors. “Our land is scattered. So we have to work together to cover more land. If we work individually, we can not get there. Even the office of agriculture can’t get there,” says Ali Ahmed, a farmer from Woreillu District.

Farmers say they can start to see changes on their farms in a year’s time though the changes in soil fertility are only becoming evident four years later. “When we built terraces, they were as tall as us. Now the terraces are half our height. Our soils were feeding the Nile before,” says Ahmed.

With the problem of resource movement solved on more than 2000 farms, researchers from Wollo University, Sirinka Agricultural Research Centre and ICRISAT could now start to work on diversifying the barley-based system. They tested new crops such as fruit trees, fodder grasses such as tree lucern and chickpea.

Enane Makaye is one of the farmers who is testing new kabuli chickpea varieties. Farmers here have never grown white-seeded varieties of chickpea and Enane is looking forward to tasting the new crop in a few months when she harvests. “I never test anything for just a year,” she says. “Crops are like people. It takes a person time to adapt to a new place. And so it will take time for this chickpea as well.”

Access to seed is a problem in such remote areas. Farmers needed to travel to Bale, 800 km away to buy seed. But with training and support, the Menkalo Producer’s Association has recently become licensed as seed producers. They have produced about 150 tons of wheat seed of the Danfe variety and will be trained on producing legume seed in the next season.

The group plans to use a seed revolving fund approach to promote access of seed to other nearby farmers and they are also looking for other markets to sell their seed. “Our old varieties of wheat were devastated by rust. But now the quality and quantity of seed has improved. We are solving our own problems,” says Sheik Muhammed Yimam.

Though farmers are aware of the benefits of adding fertilizer, it remains an expensive input especially in this high-risk environment. So experiments are underway to test micro-dosing, the precision application of fertilizer, as well as composting and using manure. Getachew Yimam, the District Bureau of Agriculture Officer, says that early results show that zinc may be the limiting factor in the Yewol watershed.

There are possibilities to scale this approach out to other sites. As Derib Hassan, the District Administrator for Woreillo says, “Almost every initiative that has come to the watershed has been beneficial. But not everyone has benefitted. Others are still waiting.”

The plan is to continue working on testing solutions with the farmers at the Yewol watershed and use it as a learning site. The farmers are willing to continue working. Each of them will donate about 45 days every year to work on building water harvesting structures on other farms. As Ali Ahmed says, “Life here is about water and soil. It has now become part of culture to build these terraces.”

This work was done in partnership with the local administration of Woreillu District, Wollo University, Sirinka Agricultural Research Centre, UNEP, ILRI,

and the farmers of the Yewol Watershed.

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