Emergency seed support to enhance food security and nutrition of drought-affected households in Amha
| Tags | |
|---|---|
| Countries | Ethiopia |
| Start date | 24/04/2016 |
| End date | 21/09/2017 |
| Status | Completed |
| Recipient / Target Areas | Ethiopia |
| Budget | 1 039 990 USD |
| Project Code | OSRO/ETH/604/CHA |
| Objective / Goal |
The overall objective of the project is to enhance the food security and nutrition of drought-affected households in Amhara, Oromia and Tigray Regions. The specific objective of the project is to provide crop, legume and vegetable seeds to 27 400 vulnerable, drought-affected households, 30 percent of which being female-headed, in four meher-dependent woredas of Amhara, Oromia and Tigray Regions, thereby enabling smallholder farmers to resume production, enhance their food security and nutrition, and maintain their livelihoods. |
| Beneficiaries | 188 705 |
| Activities |
A total of 3 210 quintals of cereal crop seed, 700 quintals of legume seed and 1 506 kg of vegetable seed were distributed across the four targeted drought affected woredas. The seed distributed to the four regions was certified, of high quality and varietal purity. Furthermore, farmers utilized row planting, applied fertilizer, and employed other beneficial agronomic practices such as weeding, composting, moisture conservation and draining, thus increasing their yield. Germination was high, at more than 90 percent. Beneficiary households planted seed, harvested their crops, and were able to largely avoid the feared serious impacts of severe food insecurity and ongoing harm to their livelihoods. Row planting and timely weeding also led to good yields in areas where farmers would have otherwise obtained a poor harvest. |
| Impact |
Thanks to this intervention, targeted woredas have sufficient seed reserves which the farmers can utilize during future planting seasons. The impact of this intervention continues. Through this emergency intervention, beneficiaries had opportunity to access to different types of agricultural inputs, such as high-quality certified seed, fertilizers and pesticides which can enhance agricultural productivity. The use of these inputs in the future will surely improve the quality of their harvest. As agriculture is labour demanding there were labour opportunities for casual labourers and good rainfall and crop performance enabled beneficiaries to harvest more product and achieve food and nutrition security. The humanitarian situation assessed after the project depicted good coping mechanisms of people affected by the impact of the El Niño induced drought. Through the receipt of seed, beneficiary households were protected from depleting their assets, which is a common coping mechanism in these regions, when faced with lack of seed reserves. Furthermore, the intervention decreased the likelihood of households resorting to negative coping mechanisms, such as contracting debts, reducing the number and quality of daily meals and selling assets. |