Irrigation for Apple growing in Ethiopia

Mugira Fredrick 18/11/2007

Farmers in the Welmera, one of the dry districts of Ethiopia have embarked on a project that uses irrigation to grow apples.

The project in the Adaa Elu area involves 34 families. They use drip method of irrigation system to water their growing apple trees. Drip irrigation, involves running water through pipes containing holes either buried or lying slightly above the ground next to the crops. Water slowly drips onto the crop roots and stems.

The farmers who are organized under the organization – Farmers Forestry Development Cooperation got the apples they planted from Spain.

The head of the cooperation, Zewde Muleta told a group of East African journalists who visited this area last week in a trip organized by the USA’s Population Reference Bureau that this area faces acute shortage of water which is the reason why they are using irrigation to grow apples.

The waters are drawn from the nearby small stream, which Zewde Muleta says that dries up sometimes when sunshine intensifies.

Speaking through an interpreter, Muleta lamented continued lack of enough water in this region stressing that there is need for alternative sources of water to help people in this area grow crops.

He stressed that local people in this area move for over half an hour to collect water from wells which at times is not safe. This, he says waste time that would have otherwise been invested in other productive activities.

Muleta was however optimistic that irrigation of their apple gardens would help them to produce enough apples to export to international markets.

Ethiopia has a developmental plan of extending water in every village in the next five years.

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