Urbanization and Fertility Rates in Ethiopia

Fertility rates are important determinants of both overall population growth and demographic transitions from high to low age dependency ratios, which in turn have important consequences for economic growth, poverty reduction, and improved health and nutrition outcomes. Ethiopia currently has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, although there are marked differences between rural and urban fertility rates. This paper explores the drivers of rural and urban fertility rates, including systematic tests of differences in key determinants. This further allows us to project fertility rates into the future based on alternative urbanization, economic growth, and education scenarios. Finally, we link these alternative projections with existing estimates of the benefits of fertility reductions on economic growth, nutrition, and poverty reductio

Women in conflict and indigenous conflict resolution among the Issa and Gurgura clans of Somali in Eastern Ethiopia

This article tries to show the impacts of conflict on women, the role of women in conflict and indigenous conflict resolution, and the participation of women in social institutions and ceremonies among the Issa and Gurgura clans of the Somali ethnic group. It explores the system of conflict resolution in these clans, and women’s representation in the system. The primary role of women in the formation of social capital through marriage and blood relations between different clans or ethnic groups is assessed. The paper focuses on some of the important elements of the socio-cultural settings of the study community that are in one way or another related to conflict and indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms. It also examines the positive aspects of marriage practices in the formation of social capital which strengthens friendship and unity instead of enmity.

A new approach for predicting drought-related vegetation stress: Integrating satellite, climate, and biophysical data over the U.S. central plains

Droughts are normal climate episodes, yet they are among the most expensive natural disasters in the world. Knowledge about the timing, severity, and pattern of droughts on the landscape can be incorporated into effective planning and decisionmaking. In this study, we present a data mining approach to modeling vegetation stress due to drought and mapping its spatial extent during the growing season. Rule-based regression tree models were generated that identify relationships between satellite-derived vegetation conditions, climatic drought indices, and biophysical data, including land-cover type, available soil water capacity, percent of irrigated farm land, and ecological type. The data mining method builds numerical rule-based models that find relationships among the input variables. Because the models can be applied iteratively with input data from previous time periods, the method enables to provide predictions of vegetation conditions farther into the growing season based on earlier conditions. Visualizing the model outputs as mapped information (called VegPredict) provides a means to evaluate the model. We present prototype maps for the 2002 drought year for Nebraska and South Dakota and discuss potential uses for these maps

Price and performance analysis of indigenous sheep breed marketing in Menz districts of Ethiopia

Sheep have multiple roles in the livelihood of resource poor farmers as source of income, meat, skin, manure, strong wool or long hairy fleece, and as buffer resources during crop failures. These important services and products of the sheep production sub-sector justify comprehensive look into the way sheep are marketed, as the services and products are the quality attributes that characterize sheep as such. Nonetheless, very few studies have been conducted so far to identify the determinants of indigenous sheep prices and performance of the marketing system. This study will therefore contribute by assessing the performance and by identifying factors that affect the price of indigenous Menz sheep in the markets of Menz District in Ethiopia. Data from primary sources were collected through market and traders' surveys. For market survey five markets (Mollale, Mehal meda , Bash, Geyi and Wejed) were included in the study, in addition to the five markets one terminal market from Addis Ababa (Sholla market) were included for traders survey. Market survey was conducted in three seasons (Holiday, normal and fasting) and a sample of 338 transactions level data were collected from sample markets. Traders’ survey was carried out during two different periods, one during high transaction (festival period) and another during normal period. All traders who attended the market were included in the survey and sample of 186 traders were surveyed. Structure, conduct and performance approach was used to examine sheep marketing efficiency. Concentration ratio was computed to assess the concentration of the market and binary logit model was estimated to analyze market barriers. Marketing costs and margins were computed along with a multiple linear regression model to identify factors that determine gross margin. Composite index was used as well to judge efficiency of different sheep marketing channels. Hedonic price model was estimated with Heteroscedasticity consistent covariance matrices to estimate factors that determine price of sheep. Survey results show that the markets are underdeveloped and inefficient, characterized by lack of xiv marketing facilities and services. The value of concentration ratio indicated that traders operate in an inefficient market. The result of logit model confirm working capital, access to information, education and experience in trading business are significant explanatory variables, which have effect on the existence of market barriers. The result of Gross margin explains that full time traders and secondary farmer traders get high gross marketing margin, the higher gross margin indicates inefficiency in the marketing system. In addition, the result of multiple regression showed that variable cost, experience of traders, increased period between purchase and sale transactions and loss of sheep increased unit gross margin. On the other hand, unit gross margin significantly decreased as size of working capital increased besides trader who have access to price information and sale their animal to regular customer earned significantly lower margin than those who did not. The result of hedonic model show that price of sheep is affected by the characteristics of sheep such as sex and age based class of sheep, age, body condition, coat color of sheep and coat hair. Sheep price was also found to be influenced by season, market location, buyers’ purpose and sellers’ purpose. Hence, it is important to consider the preferred phenotypic attributes of sheep in designing appropriate policies so as to make livestock keepers benefited from increased production and productivity. Besides, improving marketing facilities and services, organizing and supporting marketing cooperatives, and improving marketing infrastructure would create favorable conditions for sheep marketing in the study area

Growth performance and nutritive quality of tree Lucerne (Chamaecytisus palmensis) fodder under different management conditions in the Highlands of Ethiopia

Tagasaste (Chamaecytisus palmensis), also known as tree Lucerne, is an evergreen, hardy leguminous shrub that is adapted to high lands of Ethiopia. The objective of this study was to evaluate growth performance of tree lucerne in terms of survival, root collar diameter (RCD), plant height and biomass yield as influenced by different management. To conduct the present study three highlands districts (woredas) located in southern region (Lemo), in Oromia region (Sinana) and Tigrai region (Endamehoni) were selected. Within each woreda, two kebeles were purposely selected to be used as action sites, and from each kebele a minimum of 25 farmers were selected to participate in tree Lucerne adaptation trials. Each farmer received about 150 seedlings to plant and grow. Data were collected on feed resources, household characteristics and survival and performance of the seedlings. The tree lucerne fodder plots established and performed well were used to collect data on the effect of cutting height, and cutting frequency on the biomass yield of fodder. The fodder plants were subjected to two cutting heights (1m and 1.5m), and three cutting frequencies (2, 3, 4 times per year). The average household family size and livestock holdings were 8.08 heads and 10.35 heads, respectively. According to the result about 66% of the land was used for crop cultivation and the remaining 34% was apportioned into improved forage and other back yard trees in the study area. About 85.4% respondents perceived that the landholding size is decreasing, while about 13% of the farmers said that it remained stable over the years. Grazing (both private and communal) contributed the largest share of the feed resources, followed by crop residues. About 44% of the farmers mentioned that their main reason for engaging in tree lucerne cultivation is to produce livestock feed supplement. The maximum survival rate was observed for plants which grew around backyard on small plot followed by that grown on the contour lines, whereas the lowest survival rate was achieved from plants grown around water logged areas. Transplanting too small seedlings showed lower (p<0.05) survival rate as compared to the remaining agronomic and management practices. Planting space of 100cm between rows and 100cm between plants resulted in significantly (p<0.05) higher dry matter yield than 50x50cm spacing. Tree lucerne showed accelerated growth in terms of height and RCD after six months. Annual biomass production was substantially greater for six months cutting interval than for the more frequent harvests in a range of 4.17 to 8.22 t ha–1. Whereas, the two cutting height not showed significant (p<0.05) differences on biomass yield. Leaf proportion of the biomass yield consistently decreased from 63.55 to 54.52% and the stem increased from 2.38 to 16.54% as the cutting interval prolonged from three to six months, respectively. The crude protein contents for the month of June (28%) was significantly (p<0.05) higher than that of October (24.6%), whereas, the other months had intermediate value. There were no significant (p<0.05) differences in IVOMD and ME contents among the different cutting months. The current study revealed that with proper management practices, tree Lucerne can be a suitable protein supplement for ruminant livestock in the study areas

Enhancing Dynamical Seasonal Predictions through Objective Regionalization

Improving seasonal forecasts in East Africa has great implications for food security and water resources planning in the region. Dynamically based seasonal forecast systems have much to contribute to this effort, as they have demonstrated ability to represent and, to some extent, predict large-scale atmospheric dynamics that drive interannual rainfall variability in East Africa. However, these global models often exhibit spatial biases in their placement of rainfall and rainfall anomalies within the region, which limits their direct applicability to forecast-based decision-making. This paper introduces a method that uses objective climate regionalization to improve the utility of dynamically based forecast-system predictions for East Africa. By breaking up the study area into regions that are homogenous in interannual precipitation variability, it is shown that models sometimes capture drivers of variability but misplace precipitation anomalies. These errors are evident in the pattern of homogenous regions in forecast systems relative to observation, indicating that forecasts can more meaningfully be applied at the scale of the analogous homogeneous climate region than as a direct forecast of the local grid cell. This regionalization approach was tested during the July– September (JAS) rain months, and results show an improvement in the predictions from version 4.5 of the Max Plank Institute for Meteorology’s atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (ECHAM4.5) for applicable areas of East Africa for the two test cases presented

Enhancing Dynamical Seasonal Predictions through Objective Regionalization

Improving seasonal forecasts in East Africa has great implications for food security and water resources planning in the region. Dynamically based seasonal forecast systems have much to contribute to this effort, as they have demonstrated ability to represent and, to some extent, predict large-scale atmospheric dynamics that drive interannual rainfall variability in East Africa. However, these global models often exhibit spatial biases in their placement of rainfall and rainfall anomalies within the region, which limits their direct applicability to forecast-based decision-making. This paper introduces a method that uses objective climate regionalization to improve the utility of dynamically based forecast-system predictions for East Africa. By breaking up the study area into regions that are homogenous in interannual precipitation variability, it is shown that models sometimes capture drivers of variability but misplace precipitation anomalies. These errors are evident in the pattern of homogenous regions in forecast systems relative to observation, indicating that forecasts can more meaningfully be applied at the scale of the analogous homogeneous climate region than as a direct forecast of the local grid cell. This regionalization approach was tested during the July– September (JAS) rain months, and results show an improvement in the predictions from version 4.5 of the Max Plank Institute for Meteorology’s atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (ECHAM4.5) for applicable areas of East Africa for the two test cases presented