Coffee Based Rehabilitation of Degraded Land : the Case of Haru District, West Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Managing the environment in which people live has become more complex. As a result millions of people have become food insecure due to natural resource degradation. In the past few decades rehabilitation efforts have been made to counterbalance environmental degradation. However its implementation has not been successful in most cases, due to various barriers. The study aims at exploring the potential of coffee based rehabilitation strategies, while supporting the livelihood of smallholder farmers. The study was conducted at Haru district found in west Wallaga, Oromia, Ethiopia. A plot of 20 m x 20m was laid to collect vegetation data from 40 coffee farms. Socioeconomics information were collected through household interview using structured and semi structured questionnaire and focus group discussion. The result indicates that 15108ha of degraded land was rehabilitated through coffee based land use system. Vegetation assessment result showed that twenty nine species were recorded in sampled coffee farms. The proportion of indigenous tree and shrubs, exotic fruit tree and shrubs accounted for 79.3%, 17.2 % and 3.5% respectively. Similarly more than 50 percent of the coffee production was found on degraded land greater than 16% slopes. The Shannon diversity index was calculated 2.8. Given the increasingly important issue of land management coffee based land use systems was found among the most promising land uses for achieving both conservation goals and supporting human livelihoods at the landscape scale by promoting community- based management of natural resources.