In southern Ethiopia, poor families with small amounts of land to grow food on often struggle to feed themselves. We helped communities expand the production of potentially lucrative ginger and pepper, which don’t need much land to grow on.

Basic processing and storage help poor farmers make the most from their harvests, and set them up for export markets.

For those with no livestock or land, we provided basic support such as chickens to help families lift themselves out of poverty.

Our work sat alongside Ethiopian government programmes to reduce hunger in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR).

The work included:

• training farmers with small plots of land to grow ginger and pepper. Farmers receive improved seed varieties and farmers’ groups were provided with warehouses and basic processing facilities

• using village savings and loans schemes so farmers and families who struggled to access credit could manage their money and were able to set up small businesses
• establishing better links between farmers and private sector spice processors and exporters

• training extremely poor women to manage poultry businesses

Who did we help?

Farm Africa worked with women living in the Hadero and Halaba districts of SNNPR.