Holeta is a town in the special Zone of Oromia region, Ethiopia. It is located about 40 Km West of Addis Ababa, the Country’s capital. With its suitable agro ecology, a number of farmers produce vegetables for home consumption and as a source of cash income. Workie Shumeye is one of those farmers who grow vegetables year round–in different seasons. Workie and her colleagues used to grow vegetables conventionally using toxic agrochemical inputs both for soil fertility enhancement and plant protection. As the Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) project started in Holeta some ten years ago; Workie and other farmers her village became members of the project. The project came up with trainings and technical support for farmers on how they can implement organic farming practices and technologies to gradually convert their farm into an organically managed farm. By fully taking up the EOA technologies and practices, Workie became a fully fledged organic farmer. She manages poultry, pr
Her name is Rukya Dedu – a woman smallholder farmer who lives in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Vegetable production is the mainstay for her family. She grows onion, tomato, lettuce, Swiss Chard, Habesha Gomen, pepper and chili pepper. Agrochemical inputs–synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides were the major inputs she used to feed her plants and to protect them from pest and disease attack. In 2018, she joined PAN-Ethiopia’s vegetable project which has been promoting the use of environmentally sound and nontoxic alternatives for agrochemicals. It has been providing trainings and extension support for farmers on alternatives for soil fertility enhancement and plant protection methods which can be prepared by smallholder farmers with the use of locally available inputs. Rukya made use of the training and she now has set up a vermicomposting unit–producing Vermicompost and using for her vegetable seedling nursery in her backyard and her kitchen garden. She is no more using