Producer price and price transmission in a deregulated Ethiopian coffee market

Coffee producers in Ethiopia have historically received a very small share of the export price of green coffee. Reasons that are often mentioned are heavy government intervention and high marketing and processing costs. Prior to 1992, government regulation of the domestic coffee market in the form of fixed producer prices and the monopoly power of the Ethiopian Coffee Marketing Corporation put a substantial wedge between the producer price and the world price of coffee by imposing an implicit tax on producers. The domestic coffee marketing system in Ethiopia was liberalised after 1992, which was envisaged to have a positive effect on producer prices and price transmission signals from world markets to producers. This paper, with the help of Cointegration and Error-Correction Model (ECM), attempts to analyse its impact. As findings indicate, the reforms induced stronger long-run relationships among grower, wholesaler and exporter prices. The estimation of the ECM shows that the short-run transmission of price signals from world to domestic markets has improved, but has remained weak in both auction-to-world and producer-to-auction markets. This might be explained by the weak institutional arrangement coordinating the domestic coffee system and contract enforcement. In general, the domestic price adjusts more rapidly to world price changes today than it did prior to the reforms. However, there is an indication that negative price changes transmit much faster than positive ones.market deregulation, producer price, price transmission, price asymmetry,

A Farmer-based fruit seedling supply system in Dale Pilot Learning Woreda (PLW): experiences from IPMS

Dale Woreda is well known for its avocado (Persia americana) and to a lesser extent mango (Mangifera indica) production. These fruit trees are planted along with coffee (Coffee arabica), enset (Enset ventricosum) and other crops. They are important sources of income and food, playing a considerable role in the livelihood of thousands of smallholder farmers of Dale. However, the varieties found in the area have large canopies that reduce land availability for other crops. They are also tall (10-15 m) thus harvesting becomes a challenge, particularly for women. Market prices for these varieties are low and during collection, there is considerable fruit loss when they fall, causing cracks and bruises and hence their rejection. The trees also take 7- 10 years to bear fruit and farmers mention that the land can be used more productively and therefore want to replace fruit trees with other more profitable crops. The diagnostic survey carried out by Improving Productivity and Marketing Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian farmers’ project identified some of the above production constraints as the major area of intervention. Further study was conducted by the International Centre for Research on Agro Forestry (ICRAF) which confirmed the above problems and suggested introduction of improved variety through grafting as one of the best solution to improve the quality of seed, reduce size and height as well as improve productivity and marketability of these varieties. Taking the experience of Dale for coffee seedling production where farmer’s nurseries have taken over 95% of seedling production, the Dale partners decided to use farmers’ nurseries as the base to start production of grafted seedlings. Using participatory extension methods with the help of various partners, the number of private nursery operators increased from the initial six (3 females) to 20 (7 female) in 2009. The number of seedlings produced has now reached 12,000 annually and this can be easily expanded since scions can now be obtained from mother trees established earlier in each of the nursery sites. Currently, seedlings are sold at around Birr 15/seedling to neighboring farmers, some on credit provided by the nursery operators. Linkages with the Productive Safety Net program are made to facilitate the scaling out of the sale of seedlings to emerging commercial farmers. Nursery operators earned between Birr 4,000–7,000 per year from these operations. Further skills development can still be made to improve survival rates of grafted seedlings. Attention will also need to be paid to the marketing of these improved varieties as well as the development of a responsive support system providing fresh knowledge, building capacity and new technologies

Arresting gully formation in the Ethiopian highlands

Over the past five decades, gullying has been widespread and has become more severe in the Ethiopian highlands. Only in very few cases, rehabilitation of gullies has been successful in Ethiopia due to the high costs. The objective of this paper is to introduce cost effective measures to arrest gully formation. The research was conducted in the Debre-Mewi watershed located at 30 km south of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Gullying started in the 1980s following the clearance of indigenous vegetation and intensive agricultural cultivation, leading to an increase of surface and subsurface runoff from the hillside to the valley bottoms. Gully erosion rates were 10–20 times the measured upland soil losses. Water levels, measured with piezometers, showed that in the actively eroding sections, the water table was in general above the gully bottom and below it in the stabilized sections. In order to develop effective gully stabilizing measures, we tested and then applied the BSTEM and CONCEPT models for their applicability for Ethiopian conditions where active gully formation has been occurring. We found that the model predicted the location of slips and slumps well with the observed groundwater depth and vegetation characteristics. The validated models indicated that any gully rehabilitation project should first stabilize the head cuts. This can be achieved by regrading these head cuts to slope of 40 degrees and armoring it with rock. Head cuts will otherwise move uphill in time and destroy any improvements. To stabilize side walls in areas with seeps, grass will be effective in shallow gullies, while deeper gullies require reshaping of the gullies walls, then planting the gully with grasses, eucalyptus or fruit trees that can be used for income generation. Only then there is an incentive for local farmers to maintain the structures

Seismicity of the central Afar rift and implications for Tendaho dam hazards

Temporary broadband seismic networks deployed from 2007 to 2011 around the Afar triple junction of the East African Rift System provide insights into seismicity patterns of the actively deforming crust around the 1.86 km3 impounded lake system behind the Tendaho dam. The observed seismicity correlates well with the active magmatic centres around central Afar. The area around the dam site is characterized by a network of intersecting NNE- and NW-trending faults. Seismicity clusters observed in the specified time interval indicate that both fault sets are active and are potential sources of seismogenic hazards. The dam neighbourhood is naturally active and it is a challenge to associate the observed seismic activity to either a change in magmato-tectonic conditions or attribute it to the influence of reservoir load. It is evident that the dam region experi- ences high levels of seismic and volcano-tectonic unrest, regardless of the origin of the activity. The spatial overlap of narrow zones of crustal seismicity and upper mantle low velocity zones observed in S-wave tomography models suggests that melt production zones guide the distribution of strain during continental rupture. Given its volcanically and seismically active setting, the Tendaho dam site and the surrounding region require continuous monitoring for the safety of downstream popu- lations and development infrastructures in the Afar National Regional State of Ethiopia

Biodebridment as a safe way of cleaning untidy and infected wound. A case report

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A multidisciplinary study of the final episode of the Manda Hararo dyke sequence, Ethiopia, and implications for trends in volcanism during the rifting cycle

The sequence of dyke intrusions between 2005 and 2010 in the Manda Hararo rift segment, Ethiopia, provided an opportunity to test conceptual models of continental rifting. Based on trends up to dyke 13 in the sequence, it was anticipated that, should magma supply continue, dykes would shorten in length and eruptions would increase in size and decrease in distance from the segment centre as extensional stress was progressively released. In this paper we revisit these predictions by presenting a comprehensive overview of the May 2010 dyke and fissure eruption, the 14th and last in the sequence, from InSAR, seismicity, satellite thermal data, ultra violet SO2 retrievals, and multiple LiDAR surveys. We find the dyke is longer than other eruptive dykes in the sequence, propagating in two directions from the segment centre, but otherwise fairly typical in terms of opening, propagation speed and geodetic and seismic moment. However, though the eruption is located closer to the segment centre, it is much smaller than previous events. We interpret this as indicating that either the Manda Hararo rifting event was magma limited, or that extensional stress varies north and south of the segment centre