The charismatic farmer who made me feel that my college education was null and void

It was November 2016, the spring, the season every part of Ethiopia blossoms with flowers from wild plants, shining beauty from a mosaic of smallholder plots planted with different crop types and varieties of the same crop species and the greenery across the different landscapes and Agro-ecological zones.

A team of experts of Agro-ecology from all over Africa came to Ethiopia to take part in the “Community Seed Knowledge” workshop organised by African Biodiversity Network (ABN) and the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD). The workshop was held in Dessie, a city located 400 km North East of the Ethiopian capital – Addis Ababa.

On the day we drove to Dessie; we stopped in a small village in Harbu district of South Wollo Zone, one of the sorghum growing areas, and met smallholder farmers who have been involved in community seed bank project run by Ethio Organic Seed Action – an NGO working to save indigenous seeds.

As we stopped by the roadside and got off our bus; the farmers came, welcomed and paraded us to the nearby sorghum farm. When we get close to the farm, I have noticed about three different varieties of sorghum - with seeds of red, white and lemon orange colours. They all have tall and thick stalks but the one with lemon orange colour is the tallest of all with about 5-10 meters of height and with a thick stalk. The farmers started explaining to us about the land preparation, sowing, agronomic and plan protection practices they implement. We were busy trying to capture all the information from the farmers with only a few of the Ethiopian participants doing the translation to our African colleagues.

Sorghum farm, Habru, Ethiopia

The farmer kept explaining, and I heard one of the farmers say, the local sorghum varieties take 6-8 months from sowing up to harvest. One of the sorghum varieties has a local common name called Gordedie” meaning “slow maturing” and the framers told us that the name was given because it takes a long time from sowing up to harvesting. 

Gordedie Sorghum

As the farmers were explaining about all the sorghum production, a question came to my mind; “Why do they have to plant such a crop which takes time which is almost equivalent to two cropping seasons? Didn’t they know about short maturing sorghum varieties which can mature in 3-4 months that are also productive?” I didn’t want to keep my questions to myself, but I didn’t dare to ask them in front of all the visitors. I waited until the visiting session ends, approached one of the framers and asked him my question. I am the college guy who is eager to know why they have to waste their time waiting eight months for one crop to mature. When I asked him [the farmer] my question, he gave me that smiling look – his smile, the kind of smile that has the power to tell how stupid my question was. Even though I felt ashamed of my question, I had to listen to his answers.

The farmer started answering my question with a note that he knows about the improved and short maturing sorghum variety that I was referring with my question. I nodded my head with a smile so he can keep explaining. I felt deep inside that there should be something to make them choose Gordedie over the short maturing variety. He [the farmer] kept explaining about why the farmers in his area sow the local sorghum varieties. “As you see them, these sorghums varieties have long and thick stalks and the functions from the stalks are one of the reasons we keep sowing them –apart from being used as a food source. The stalks are sources of fuelwood, animal feed, and roof thatching for traditional huts.”

I am not an expert in plant breeding but guessed that they bred the short maturing sorghum varieties to increase yield and tackle challenges related to moisture stress because of lack of adequate rainfall. I forwarded that question to the farmer. He was confident enough and told me that “I can at least get food for my cattle from my sorghum varieties if there is a shortage or rainfall.” So, what needs to change? Is it our breeding and extension systems or the farmers’ attitude to switch planting the short maturing breeds? Can they both go together? If so, what about the small farm size that can’t accommodate two different varieties to give enough food and feed?

The brief conversation I had with the farmer made me think about my college education, how I was taught and saw my theoretical knowledge debunked by the age old indigenous knowledge on the multi-functionality of a crop. A crop for me was a food but a crop for him [the farmer] was his food, his source of fuel, a source of animal feed and an input for house construction.

The conversation made me ask questions to myself; do researchers/ seed breeders engage farmers [end users] during breeding? Do they collect inputs from farmers? How are extension approaches designed? Are farmers consulted when designing extension approaches? Is this why the agriculture extension system became a fiasco? I leave all these questions here and take you back to the workshop and the visit where I learned that there is a way out for all those pitfalls – Agro ecology which puts farmers and local communities at the driving seat in innovations, extensions, knowledge creation and transfer.

During the workshop, experiences of smallholder farmers in saving seed, engagement in community research, innovations and extensions were presented. I learned that the bottom up approach is the viable option to save local seed varieties, ensure food and nutrition security and develop an extension system that can give much space for farmers. Such approaches can give much emphasis to farmer’s innovations and engage them in action researches. Its knowledge intensiveness, inclusiveness in training and extension systems and the room it can create for farmers in the knowledge creation and transfer made Agro-ecology the viable option to save our food system.

I am telling you this story because that brief moment I had with that charismatic and confident farmer made me re-think about our conventional approaches to agriculture development. This story helped me contextualise the content of Agro ecology and I hope it did the same to you. I did not meet that farmer again, but every time I pass through Habru, I remember him. The Gordedie sorghum is still being widely grown in that area. 

Gordedie, the sorghum with long and thick stalk