Trees for Food Security Project-Local Knowledge-Local Knowledge of Farmers on Farm Tree Management, East Shewa Zone, Ethiopia

Food insecurity, natural resource degradation and climate change threaten 12-14 million livelihoods in Ethiopia annually. Trees are being hyped as a ‘silver bullet’ solution to meet these triple challenges. However, studies suggest a decreasing trend not only in adoption but farmers practice of maintaining trees on their farms. The study explores the local knowledge of 94 farmers in two villages of the East Shewa Zone, Ethiopia on land use and land cover dynamics on the farming landscape, tree adoption and management of trees on agricultural fields and their implications for sustained food security. Findings suggest farmers have extensive knowledge on tree on fields, their utilities, management, and effect of management on natural regeneration and the overall role of trees in ensuring livelihoods. Farmers identified government policies and population growth as main drivers of land use and tree cover change in both sites. Farmers retained and or planted trees on their fields for meeting tree product needs with tree materials for dead fencing as major a priority.

每年，粮食不安全、自然资源退化与气候变化均对埃塞俄比亚1200万至1400万民众的生计构成严峻威胁。树木被大肆宣传为应对这三重挑战的“灵丹妙药”式解决方案。然而现有研究表明，不仅农户采用树木种植的比例呈下降趋势，其在农田保留树木的实践也同样呈缩减态势。本研究针对埃塞俄比亚东部舍瓦区（East Shewa Zone）两个村庄的94名农户开展调研，旨在了解其关于农地景观土地利用与土地覆盖动态、树木种植采用、农田树木管理的本土知识，以及这些实践对维持粮食安全的潜在影响。调研结果显示，农户对农田树木的相关知识储备颇为丰富，涵盖树木的用途、管理方式、管理措施对自然更新的影响，以及树木在保障生计方面的整体作用。农户均指出，政府政策与人口增长是两个调研区域土地利用及树木覆盖变化的主要驱动因素。农户会在农田保留或种植树木，以满足自身的林木产品需求，其中用于搭建枯篱的林木材料是其首要考量。