Mapping the supply and demand of Enset crop to improve food security in Southern Ethiopia

Sahle, Mesfin, Yeshitela, Kumelachew and Saito, Osamu, (2018). Mapping the supply and demand of Enset crop to improve food security in Southern Ethiopia. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 38(7), 1-9

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    Author Sahle, Mesfin
    Yeshitela, Kumelachew
    Saito, Osamu
    Title Mapping the supply and demand of Enset crop to improve food security in Southern Ethiopia
    Appearing in Agronomy for Sustainable Development
    Volume 38
    Issue No. 7
    Publication Date 2018-02
    Place of Publication Online
    Publisher Springer Paris
    Start page 1
    End page 9
    Language eng
    Abstract Food security is a worldwide key issue in the context of climate change, requiring to plan local agriculture and make decisions. In order to proceed, it is essential to understand the value of ecosystem services provided by agricultural landscapes. Here, we quantified and mapped the supply and demand of an indigenous food, kocho (i.e., a bread made from starch derived from the Enset plant), in the Wabe River catchment of Gurage Mountains in Southern Ethiopia. To proceed, we measured the pseudostem and plant heights within 100 m2 sample plots of Enset farms. Enset home garden spatial features were extracted from satellite imagery, and a household questionnaire survey was administered along with population census data.We used suitable models to quantify the yield and demand of kocho, and the data were interpolated, analyzed, and mapped with the ArcGIS software. The results show that the average catchment-wide squeezed (moisture-removed) kocho yield is 16.2 kg/plant, which is equivalent to 417 tons/ha. The annual yield is 6500 kg/ha, and 4.5 million tons of kocho are available as standing stock. However, the spatial distribution of Enset production and its yield are not uniform in the catchment, and the largest stock is found in tepid moist and tepid humid agroecologies. The average demand of kocho per person is fulfilled by 16 Enset plants (i.e., 289 kg) with only 38% of households able to satisfy their demand from their own home garden. There is a high per capita kocho demand in warm subhumid agroecological zones and a low demand in cool moist zones. While the supply-demand budget shows that there is a high supply of kocho in most areas, the demand is greater than the supply in 25% of the catchment. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that through quantification and mapping of the supply to demand of kocho, the Enset crop contributes to food security in the catchment and needs to improve its production as it is spatially not uniform. This study provides a data set for planners and decision-makers to enhance the production of kocho and to satisfy the current supply-demand gap.
    Keyword Food system
    Kocho
    Agroecology
    Spatial
    Supply-demand budgets
    Upscaling
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2018
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.1007/s13593-017-0484-0
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    Created: Tue, 23 Jan 2018, 16:40:23 JST by PEGUES, Susan Scott on behalf of UNU IAS