Effect of drip lateral spacing and irrigation regime on yield, irrigation water use efficiency and net return of tomato and onion production in the Kobo Girrana valley of Ethiopia

The irrigation system in Kobo-Girrana valley is extensively developed into modern drip irrigation using ground water sources. Tomato and onion are among the major vegetables grown under drip irrigation. However, the drip lateral spacing is fixed to 1m for all irrigated crops. This lead to low crop water productivity, loss of land, less net return income and un-optimized irrigation production. An on-station experiment was conducted to determine the effect of drip line spacing and irrigation regime on yield, irrigation water use efficiency and net return income. The experiment was carried out for two consecutive irrigation seasons in 2010/11 and 2011/12 at Kobo irrigation research station. The experimental treatments were: two lateral spacing of single row and double row corresponding to each test crop and three irrigation regime (Kp = 0.8, 1.0 and 1.2). The results revealed that an interaction effect between the lateral spacing and irrigation regime was obtained in marketable yield and water productivity of test crops. Application of 0.8 Kp with 2m lateral spacing and 1.2 Kp with 1m lateral spacing provided relatively higher marketable yield of tomato and onion, respectively. Similarly, high water productivity was recorded with same irrigation depths and spacing regimes as to the yield. This result generally revealed that one lateral design for each two plant rows gave high net income than the one lateral design for each one plant row for drip irrigated fresh marketable yield of onion and tomato. An optimized production and irrigation efficiency can be attained by applying irrigation depth adjusted by the given pan coefficients and drip lateral spacing in Kobo areas

Retrospective Assessment of Malnutrition Among Under-five Children in Ayder Referral Hospital, Tigray Ethiopia

Currently worldwide there are about 60 million children with moderate acute and 13 million with severe acute malnutrition. About 9% of sub-Saharan African and 15%of south Asian children have moderate acute malnutrition and about 2% of children in developing countries have severe acute malnutrition. The objective of aim the study was to assess the magnitude of malnutrition in under five children in Ayder referral hospital using a retrospective cross-sectional study design. This study showed that male children, 168(58.1%), were higher than female, 121(41.9%).. Majority, 133(46%), were in the age group b/n 12 to 24 months .More than half, 186(64.4%) were rural dwellers. The types of malnutrition identified were Marasmus, kwashiorkor, Marasmic kwash and underweight which account for 116(40.1%), 69(23.9%), 54(18.7%) and 50(17.5%) respectively. Marasmus was the predominant type of malnutrition in all age groups of under five malnourished children with prevalence of 40.1% where as underweight was the prevalent type of malnutrition (17.3%). More over the infant feeding practices such as exclusive breast feeding, timely initiation of complementary feeding, and having history of breast feeding once in their life during infancy were relatively higher among the children as compared with other studies

Avenues for Enhancing Traditional Livelihoods from Grasslands: Income Diversification Among Pastoral Women’s Groups in Southern Ethiopia

The rangelands of Africa remain home to millions of people who try to make a living by raising livestock on natural forage. Recent increase in human and livestock populations, however, along with a lack of economic development, has relegated many people to poverty and vulnerability. The semi-arid Borana Plateau of southern Ethiopia is a case in point. About 250,000 people herd one million head of livestock there. Thousands of animals die in periodic droughts and people are food insecure. It has been proposed that one way to better manage risk in this system is through economic diversification to reduce vulnerability (Desta & Coppock, 2002). The need to better address problems requires that local human capacity be built and solutions carefully targeted. To this end some members of the USAID-funded Pastoral Risk Management (PARIMA) project have adopted participatory research methods where scientists, communities, and development agents share power in a process of problem solving

Podoconiosis in East and West Gojam Zones, Northern Ethiopia

Background: Podoconiosis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) that is prevalent in red clay soil-covered highlands of tropical Africa, Central and South America, and northern India. It is estimated that up to one million cases exist in Ethiopia. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of podoconiosis in East and West Gojam Zones of Amhara Region in northern Ethiopia. Methodology/Principal Findings: A cross-sectional household survey was conducted in Debre Eliyas and Dembecha woredas (districts) in East and West Gojam Zones, respectively. The survey covered all 17,553 households in 20 kebeles (administrative subunits) randomly selected from the two woredas. A detailed structured interview was conducted on 1,704 cases of podoconiosis identified in the survey. Results: The prevalence of podoconiosis in the population aged 15 years and above was found to be 3.3% (95% CI, 3.2% to 3.6%). 87% of cases were in the economically active age group (15–64 years). On average, patients sought treatment five years after the start of the leg swelling. Most subjects had second (42.7%) or third (36.1%) clinical stage disease, 97.9% had mossy lesions, and 53% had open wounds. On average, patients had five episodes of acute adenolymphangitis (ALA) per year and spent a total of 90 days per year with ALA. The median age of first use of shoes and socks were 22 and 23 years, respectively. More men than women owned more than one pair of shoes (61.1% vs. 50.5%; x2 = 11.6 p = 0.001). At the time of interview, 23.6% of the respondents were barefoot, of whom about two-thirds were women. Conclusions: This study showed high prevalence of podoconiosis and associated morbidities such as ALA, mossy lesions and open wounds in northern Ethiopia. Predominance of cases at early clinical stage of podoconiosis indicates the potential for reversing the swelling and calls for disease prevention interventions