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Abdulaziz Dino Gidreta
The most serious problem is the widespread of baboons and monkeys. They even
eat Ensets. Last year, in a matter of a day, they devastated almost all what we had
harvested for months. That time is unforgettable! (HOARCM13, 26/04/11).
Comparable to many rural districts of Ethiopia, in the targets neighborhoods, agriculture
is far the dominant socio-economic activity followed by local trade activities (small scale
household business) in which women play the most of participation. The most perma-
nently cultivated crops include Enset, coffee and Çhat. Enset remained the most com-
monly and widely cultivated for food, while coffee and chat are the most helpful cash
crops. And again, at seasonal bases the people cultivate vegetables and root crops such
as peppers, cabbage, carrots, salad, potatoes, taro and yam; the last two, locally known
as Godere and Boye respectively.
And once farmers tend to produce some sort of crop, they do not clearly know productive
ways of storing and selling. They make use of old-fashioned harvesting mechanisms,
and become victims of human theft, animal destruction, decay, and sometimes subject
to devastation by accidental rains like in cases of delayed harvesting. And if they collect,
they tend to sell it at local markets for insignificant price as compared with their labor and
other resources, the raw material and time.
Most seriously, cultivated crops get infected by various diseases. Coffee and chat as
major cash crops are the highly attacked by diseases. In villages across all kebeles, cof-
fee covers wider area next to Enset. Coffee is one of the widely cultivated cash crops in
Ethiopia. As the most exported item in Ethiopia, coffee covers the wider range of area
followed by Enset, in almost all villages of the target vicinity. Almost every household has
coffee trees in different numbers. One thing that makes coffee more productive crop is
that once ripened the original tree continues to produce fruits for several years. Although
the productivity depends on the type and the variety, almost all need physical care before
and during harvest. As to a study conducted by Jimma University, Dobba kebele has
been known for its coffee productivity among the entire Kebeles. Nevertheless, there is
coffee plant disease by which the stem dries out and the farmers cut it out. And tradition-
ally, the people do not use the same axe to cut healthy coffee trees, fearing transfer of the
disease (FGD, 23/04/11).
The people use the cash money from coffee. Due to various diseases, however, it has not
been as productive as it could be. There are common diseases which the people do not
understand the causes, and thus the preventions. The diseases are not clearly identified
by researchers. Simply sometimes in some years the leaves of the tree shrink, and the
stem dries out latter lacking any amount of coffee bean or making premature beans. As
a previously adapted care, some people make use of fluid medications dropping all over
the leaves of trees as disease prevention mechanism. The appropriate consumption of
this medication might be proper for one of the diseases but cannot be a solution for all
types of diseases that might attack the coffee plants. So, there must be in-depth re-
searches to identify the types of diseases in particular areas.
