Ethiopia
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Africa Today Features Nourishing the Planet
August 17, 2010 by Danielle Nierenberg
After visiting 25 countries and over 150 projects, Nourishing the Planet continues to see its global reach expand. Co-Project Director Danielle Nierenberg was recently interviewed for this profile of her sub-Saharan African travels in the Portuguese magazine Africa Today. The article discusses her research and discoveries from her very first visit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to the lessons she’s learned after almost a year of travel.
Many Good Reasons to Grow Teff
August 13, 2010 by Danielle Nierenberg
In this regular series we profile African indigenous crops that can improve food security and protect the environment.
Teff is an indigenous grain grown on the dry plateaus of Ethiopia, deep in America’s breadbasket, and in the valleys of Australia’s Murray-Darling basin. Its name is thought to come from the Amharic word “teffa,” which means lost, because the grains of the plant are very small and are often dropped and lost by farmers. Also known as “lovegrass” and “mil éthiopien,” teff originated in the highlands of northeastern Africa in what is today Ethiopia and Eritrea, where it has been grown for centuries and continues to play a central role in the regional cuisine.
Ethiopian farmers grow teff on the plateaus of highland Ethiopia. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)
Ethiopian farmers plant nearly 1.4 million hectares of teff annually, and the crop accounts for about a quarter of the country’s total cereal production. Teff grows very well under difficult conditions such as unpredictable rainfall and is usually left alone by pests and disease, making it a promising crop for export to areas that face issues of food security. The U.S. National Research Council, in its publication Lost…
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Large Scale Land Investments do not Benefit Local Communities
August 2, 2010 by Bernard Pollack
Cross-posted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. This is the third blog in a series about the increasing prevalence of large-scale land acquisitions, or land-grabs.
In April 2010, more than 120 farmers’ groups and non-governmental organizations all across the world signed a statement declaring their opposition to the guiding principles endorsed by the World Bank, the FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD on “responsible” land investments.
The campaign, spearheaded by NGOs GRAIN, FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN), Land Research Action Network (LRAN) and La Via Campesina, calls for an immediate end to land grabbing, claiming that it “denies land for local communities, destroys livelihoods, reduces the political space for peasant oriented agricultural policies and distorts markets towards increasingly concentrated agribusiness interests and global trade rather than towards sustainable peasant/smallhold production for local and national markets.”
The groups also believe that land-grabbing will “accelerate eco-system destruction and the climate crisis” because many of the deals rely on industrial and “mono-culture oriented” production systems.
In an interview with Nourishing the Planet, writer and activist Raj Patel denounced land-grabs as “modern forms of colonialism, except with colonialism there was the…
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Ethiopia: History, Culture & Economy
July 31, 2010 by A'Keiba Burrell
Ethiopia (pronounced /ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/) (Ge’ez: ኢትዮጵያ ʾĪtyōṗṗyā) is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa. Officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, it is the second-most populous nation in Africa with over 79.2 million people and the tenth-largest by area with its 1,100,000 km2. The capital is Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, and Kenya to the south.
Though most African nations are, in their modern form, less than a century old, Ethiopia has been an independent nation since ancient times, being one of the oldest countries in the world. A monarchy for most of its history, theEthiopian dynasty traces its roots to the 2nd century BC. Besides being an ancient country, Ethiopia is one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity’s oldest traces. It may be the region from which Homo sapiens first set out for the Middle East and points beyond. When Africa was divided up by European powers at the Berlin Conference, Ethiopia was one of only two countries that retained its independence. It was one of only four African members of the League of Nations. After a brief period of Italian occupation, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. When other…
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Ethiopia, or, Where I Freely Walk into Oncoming Livestock
July 26, 2010 by Susie Hughes
Everyone has to visit Ethiopia. It’s where we come from people! The history of human evolution and civilization that exists in this country is mindblowing.
We started in the capital city of Addis Ababa, where we arrived very early from Cairo (after hilarious times at the Ethiopian Airlines check-in desk and with a security guard who literally GROWLED at Broseph and then fell about laughing saying “Obama!” Random, but we do appreciate our esteemed prez for giving us so much street cred in Africa!). Once landed and visa-ed, we took a cab to a well-known travelers spot, the Baro Hotel, and hoped they’d have a room available. (We had initially booked a room at Mr. Martin’s Cozy Place, but Mr. Martin never confirmed our reservation or inquiry about being met at the airport, so we gave up on him and his, um, cozy place.) The Baro did have a room, which was dank, dark and totally grody, but it was eight bucks a night, so how much can I ask for really?
After a nap we set off to find an ATM. It’s no joke that there is about ONE in the whole country, and even that is not known…
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50+ Things to Do in 50 African Countries
July 8, 2010 by Bernard Pollack
We had fun writing this post for Matador Trips called “50+ Things to Do in 50 African Countries”. Having visited more than 17 African countries so far, and spoken with hundreds of travelers, we’ve accumulated this list. If you’re looking for something amazing to do in any of the countries on the continent, here are some ideas to get you started.
1. Algeria: Spend a day walking in Algiers to see Turkish palaces and the Martyrs Monument. The Dar Hassan Pacha Palace is a good one.
2. Angola: Head to Luanda in February for their annual carnival and join other expats for live shows and movies at Karl Marx. Claudio Silva has more in 5 Reasons to Go to Angola in 2009 (And Beyond).
3. Benin: See lions, leopards, hippos, and more at the Parc National de la Penjari. In Contonou, we hear the bar Le Costa Rica is a lot of fun.
4. Botswana: The best-value walking safari in Southern Africa is right next to Gaborone at a place called Mokolodi Nature Reserve. We love their permaculture projects, and they offer rhino tracking and safaris by horseback.
5.…
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Copyright Law on Ethiopian Music
June 9, 2009 by Renee Blodgett
Is copyright law for the selected few? Let’s take a look at Ethiopian music, the beat of their own drum, their own music and copyright issues.
Bono’s Three Wishes
February 28, 2005 by Renee Blodgett
U2′s Bono speaks up. He talked to us at TED via satellite about his goals for cleaning up and wiring Africa. ABC News (via AP) also picks up his story.
He starts out by saying what gets him really turned on about the digital age, the digital revolution. “Technology has closed the gap between knowing and doing. Technology has brought prices down and Imagination has been decoupled from the old constraints,” says Bono. “I would like to see idealism decoupled from the old constraints.”
He speaks of his journey, which started twenty years ago with Bandaid, the summer he went to Ethiopia for the first time. Anyone who has ever given something to Africa gets a significant amount back. Having lived there a few times in my life (Kenya and South Africa), I agree.
“In Ethiopia, a man gave me his child, asked me to take the child back to Ireland with me,” says Bono. Why? Because he knew the child would not survive there and would stand a chance if he left the country. Hard to resist a dying man’s face, hard to pass up and yet he did. Wouldn’t most…
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Bono on Africa
February 26, 2005 by Renee Blodgett
U2′s Bono gave an incredible speech accepting his TED award yesterday in Monterey California, via satellite. He was eloquent, articulate and passionate about his goals, one of which is to wire every school, hospital and health institution in Ethiopia. And there’s more. I managed to capture most of his talk and my thoughts and will post it within the next day.
