Successes, lessons and challenges from grain legume sourcing and export marketing: Experiences from ACOS Ethiopia

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundatio

Women’s Participation in Cooperatives: The Case of Gedeb Hassasa Farmer’s Multipurpose Cooperative Society in Arsi Zone, Oromiya, Ethiopia

Women’s participation can be viewed as the active involvement of women in all spheres of affairs. Rural women could play a significant role in agricultural production. Despite women’s contribution to their livelihoods, food production and national economies is immense, it has not been translated into better access to resources or decision making powers. Their participation in management board, decision making and other cooperative affairs is generally low. Therefore, identifying firstly their level of participation in cooperatives, secondly the factors that affect their participation in cooperatives and thirdly the benefit they could get from the cooperatives were characterized as the specific objectives of Gedeb Hassasa Farmers Multipurpose cooperative society. A multistage sampling method was adopted to select 101 women respondents from five cooperative societies. FGDs conducted with cooperative members of both sexes. From the study result, women’s participation in the general assembly and in the decision making process at all levels is very low, whereas, the participation of women in other traditional social institutions was high. The findings of the descriptive results shows that work load in the household rank first in order of rank: however, the FGDs reveals participation in the informal institutions is the major problem affecting women’s participation in cooperatives. The finding of the descriptive results shows that the majority of women respondents did not know the by-laws, rights, duties and obligations, and cooperative values and principles. With respect to access to training only 24.5 % of women respondents were trained. The descriptive result also reveals the economic and social benefit of cooperatives to women. From the results one can observe that there has been a somewhat improvement in qualities of life such as in improved access to food, schools, health care, housing and clothing. In a similar ways the findings of the study also shows that the source of credit after joining the cooperative society has been increasing compare to that before participating in cooperative

Physiochemical characteristics of honey obtained from traditional and modern hive production systems in Tigray region, northern Ethiopia

This study was conducted with the objective to determine the  physiochemical characteristics of Tigray honey (n= 38) and to compare the quality honey of Tigray with those described in the Quality Standard Authority of Ethiopia, Codex Standard and European Honey Directive. Honey samples were collected from traditional hives (n =19) and modern hives (n=19) production systems. Physiochemical characteristics evaluated were: color, moisture, reducing sugar, sucrose, acidity, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), mineral content, pH, water insoluble solids and specific gravity. All parameters were analyzed following the techniques proposed by the Codex Standard for Honey. A statistical analysis using GMP5 soft ware was utilized to determine the differences in quality between honey from traditional and modern hive production systems. The average content of mineral, moisture, acidity, invert sugar, pH, sucrose, specific gravity and water insoluble solids in traditional hive honey samples were 22%, 18.25%, 29.89 meq kg-1, 70.95%, 4.13, 2.37%, 1.41 and 0.07%, respectively. On the other hand, the corresponding values for honey samples from modern hive production system were 0.18%, 18.60%, 29.12meqkg-1, 71.42 %, 4.04, 2.71%, 1.40, and 0.03%, respectively. Consequently, no significant differences (p> 0.05) were found in all the quality parameters except for water insoluble solids. The mean value for HMF was 11.18 mgkg-1 for the processed honey and the color of the honey varied from white to amber with light amber (55.26%) being the predominant color of the honey in Tigray. All the honey samples met the Codex Standard, QSAE and EU physiochemical quality Standard limits for honey except water insoluble solids in traditional hive production system. Water insoluble solids were found in 26.32% of the samples examined which will have to be improved through intensive training and experience sharing.Key word: Honey, Quality, Physiochemical characteristics, Tigra

Design, simulation and production of hydraulic briquette press for metal chips

Removal of metal chips are involved in several industrial production processes that machine from casted parts by various operations such as turning, milling and drilling. In addition to the fact that the chips represent a treat to the environment, their storage requires a large surface area. The objective of the project reported in this article is to improve the current layout of a machining workshop aimed to minimize material handling cost, increase operator safety, improve flexibility for operation, minimize the overall cost and utilize the available area. The research project focused on the compaction of metal chips briquette for simplicity of storage as well as handling and transportation of metal chips for a factory named Hibret Manufacturing and Machine Building Industry (HMMBI). The machining process on CNC lathe and milling machines in this company produces 1500 – 2000 kg/month chip. An effective design of hydraulic briquette press is carried out by using solid modelling tool and the hydraulic circuit is simulated. The result of the designed machine is observed to address the stated problems of the company.publishedVersio

Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction Analysis of Coffee Germplasms from Southern Ethiopia

Additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) analysis is a recently recommended effective method to study the genotype by environment (GxE) interaction pattern of multi-environment varietal trials. This work deals with modeling and examining the GxE interaction pattern of the multi-environment trials of 43 genotypes and eight environments from Southern Ethiopia coffee (Coffea Arabica L.) collections using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. The work further attempts to predict yield based on the ammi model and evaluate and recommend high performing and adaptable varieties. The AMMI model with the first two interaction principal component axes (AMMI2) is found to be appropriate and parsimonious for the data. Environments e5, e6, e7, e8 and e3 are found to be high potential environments, where genotypes having high-yield (greater than 14 qt/ha) and resistant to Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) are associated. Among the 43 genotypes, 1, 9, 2, 3, 32, 12 and 25 are found to have the best performance with 3, 32, 12 and 25 being highly stable. Among the high-yielding genotypes, 33, 4, 23, 34 and 27 are found to be highly unstable and particularly adapted to environments 5, 6, 7 and 3, respectively

Study on the assessment of drug resistance on Trypanosoma vivax in Tselemti woreda , Tigray, Ethiopia

The study was conducted at Tselemti Woreda, Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia, some 1200 kms away from the capital, from November 2002 to April 2003. In the first phase of this study, questionnaire survey was carried out to assess livestock production constraints. Subsequently, a study on the occurrence of drug resistance to diminazene aceturate and isomethamidum chloride of Trypanosoma vivax isolate in artificially infected goats were conducted. Results of the questionnaire survey revealed that 95.7% of the interviewees replied that trypanosomosis is a series problem in their areas. Apart from this, under dosing of trypanocidal drugs appeared a common practice in the areas surveyed. Drug sensitivity test conducted on 18 artificially infected goats revealed that T. vivax developed resistance to the curative doses of diminazene aceturate (3.5 mg/kg b.wt) and isomethamidum chloride (0.25 mg/kg b.wt). No relapses were seen for those animals treated with diminazen aceturate at a dose of 7 mg/kg b.wt and 0.5 mg/kg b.wt of isomethamidum chloride. Sanative pair between diminazene aceturate and isometamidum chloride was also confirmed by the occurrence of no relapses after first treatment with diminazene aceturate (at 3.5 mg/kg) and isomethamidum chloride (0.25 mg/kg) and a second treatment with 0.25 mg/kg isomethamidum chloride and 3.5 mg/kg diminazene aceturate, respectively. During the 90 days of trial period there was no statistical significant difference (P>0.05) in mean PCV of the five groups before and after treatment: (26+1.23), (27.5+1.33), (26.5+2.03), (29.8+2.12) and (25.5+ 3.06) for groups I, II, III, IV and V respectively. Generally diminazene aceturate at dose of 7 mg/kg and isomethamidum chloride at dose of 0.5 mg/kg b.wt were most effective in terms of curing infections as well as improving PCV and body weight. It was concluded that where there are indications for drug resistance against isomethamidum and diminazene aceturate the use of trypanocidal drugs should be supervised, the principle of sanative pairs has to be applied and chemotherapy needs to be integrated with other methods like vector (tsetse and biting flies) control. Keywords: Diminazene-aceturate, drug-resistance, goats, isomethamidumchloride, trypanosomosis, Tselemti

Assessment of the user characteristics of the out- patient service of Jimma Hospital

Abstract: A survey to assess users' characteristics of the out-patient (OPD) Service of Jimma Hospital (South West Ethiopia) was undertaken during 1-15 August 1993. A total of 1256 patients who reported to OPD services during the day and night, including emergency hours, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire to examine socio-demographic factors, reasons for hospital visit and others. Among the 1256 interviewed 76.6% were from Jimma town and 12.7% were referred from other health institutions, 52.9% were females; 63.5% were married; 7.3% have a family size of > 10 and 74.5% patients travelled for less than one hour while 2.6% travelled more than 12 hours to reach the Hospital. It was also found out that 11.8%,49.3% and 11.8% sought medical help within 24 hours, 1-7 weeks and 12 weeks, respectively. Age, sex and inefficient referral system were found to have significant effect on the utilization of the OPD services of Jimma Hospital. [Ethiop. I. Health Dev. 1996;10(2):111-115

CARE GIVERS KNOWLEDGE, BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES ON CASE MANAGEMENT OF ACUTE RESPIRATORY ILLNESSES IN A RURAL DISTRICT IN ETIHIOPIA

ABSTRACT: A survey was conducted in three randomly selected farmers' associations in Sululta District, around Chancho town out of which, 540 households were selected randomly. Mothers and other care givers of children under-five were interviewed regarding their knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practices in case management of acute respiratory illnesses. The study showed that 406(75% ) of the care givers have favorable practice, whereas 483(89.4%),497(92.0%) and 334(61.9%) of the care givers have unfavorable attitudes, knowledge and beliefs, respectively. Care givers' age is significantly associated with practice, attitudes and beliefs. Care givers' economic status is also significantly associated with their practice, attitudes and knowledge whereas care givers' education and presence of grand parents in the neighborhood affected significantly their attitude, knowledge and belief. [Ethiop. i. Health Dev. 1994;8(2): 103-108

Anomalous magnetic ordering in PrBa_2Cu_3O_{7-y} single crystals: Evidence for magnetic coupling between the Cu and Pr sublattices

In Al-free PrBa_2Cu_3O_{7-y} single crystals the kink in the temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibility chi_{ab}(T), connected with Pr antiferromagnetic ordering, disappears after field cooling (FC) in a field H || ab-plane. The kink in chi_c(T) remains unchanged after FC in H || c-axis. As a possible explanation, freezing of the Cu magnetic moments, lying in the ab-plane, caused by FC in H || ab, hinders their reorientation and, due to coupling between the Pr and Cu(2) sublattices, ordering of the Pr^{3+} moments. A field induced phase transition and a field dependence of the Pr^{3+} ordering temperature have been found for both H || c and H || ab.Comment: 11 pages (LaTex with elsart.sty), 5 EPS figs. Accepted to Physica