Meet Rukya Dedu – a pioneer farmer promoting the use of organic inputs for vegetable production

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 pesticides for pest and disease management as she replaced it with plant extracts like garlic and ginger mixture, neem seed extract and baking soda solution, respectively. 

Her organically managed kitchen garden is used as a source of food for her family. The nursery in her backyard is also used as a cash income for her. 

She is one of the outstanding women farmers in Abine Germama Village–CRV, Ethiopia. She is a pioneer in promoting the production of diverse vegetables to her neighbors. She uses her borehole as a source of water to irrigate her nursery and her kitchen garden.