Improving animal drawn tillage system in Ethiopian highlands

In most smallholder farms in Ethiopian highlands, farmers still use the wooden ard plough (Maresha). This study was undertaken to understand and optimise the traction forces provided by the draught animals. An ard plough equipped with three load cells (one on the beam and one on each side of the yoke) was implemented to measure traction forces required for tillage of four Vertisol fields under wet and dry conditions. Tillage was performed at three different depths of shallow (0–5 cm), medium-deep (5–10 cm) and deep (10–15 cm). The interpretation of force measurement was done for equally and unequally strong pair of oxen. After tillage, soil samples were taken for the determination of bulk density and moisture content. The cross-section area of furrow profile (CSAFP) and depth were also measured.With the measurement of equally strong oxen, each ox provided 50% of the total traction force required for tillage. However, with unequally strong oxen, different contributions of each ox to the total traction force were found. The stronger ox moved faster than the weaker ox, creating an asymmetric position of the yoke. In this situation, the weaker ox had to work harder to overcome the force transferred from the strong ox and correct the asymmetric position of the yoke. Thus, the weaker ox had to provide a larger force to the total traction force compared to the stronger ox. A larger traction force was measured with the yoke asymmetric position for smaller depth, speed and CSAFP. Therefore, farmers in the Ethiopian highlands can improve the tillage efficiency of the Ethiopian ard plough by using equally strong pairs of oxen. However, with unequally strong oxen the weaker ox should be enhanced to walk a head of the stronger ox, allowing the latter to provide the larger required traction force.     

Poverty reduction with irrigation investment: An empirical case study from Tigray, Ethiopia

The regional government of Tigray has invested millions of dollars to develop irrigation schemes as a strategy of poverty reduction. However, there has been limited attempt to analyze whether these investments have attained their stated objectives of poverty reduction and overall socio-economic enhancement. Therefore, we endeavor to: (1) evaluate the impacts of access to small-scale irrigation on farm household's income and poverty status, (2) contribute to the scant literature on irrigation and poverty reduction in Ethiopia, and (3) provide information for policy makers. We examine a representative sample of 613 farm households (331 irrigators and 282 non-irrigators) drawn using three-stage stratified sampling with Probability Proportional to Size. We find that the average income of non-irrigating households is less than that of the irrigating households by about 50%. The overall average income gain due to access to irrigation ranges from 4000 Birr to 4500 Birr per household per annum. We find also that farming income is more important to irrigating households than to non-irrigating households, and off-farm income is negatively related with access to irrigation.