Hey Friends, First of all, my deepest apologies for writing this article late.  Apparently, for the past ten days, there was no internet connection across Ethiopia and we just got back to civilization.

Today I would like to share with you about Konso people and their remarkable tradition of farming that prevents soil erosion. Konso is a small ethnic homeland in the Great Rift Valley at 5?15? N, 37?30? E with an area around 500 square kilometres. Altitude ranges from 800 to 2200m but the traditional area of cultivation is between 1400 and 2000m. Konso?s capital is Karat town, which is where we are based, at 1600m altitude, 85km south of Arba Minch, and 590km south of Addis Ababa. The Konsos are renowned in Ethiopia for their highly social mode of life and love of hard physical labour. Whereas most farming communities in Ethiopia live spread out across the high green plateau of the land, with a house here on this field and the next house over there on that field (a bit like in Ireland), the Konso?s instead live in intensely crowded hill-top settlements, with the community farmlands on the surrounding slopes below. There are good reasons for this. Firstly they occupy a rugged chain of basalt hills sitting in the Great Rift valley, which are steep and eroded, criss-crossed with ravines and gulleys. Secondly they are bordered by lowland pastoralists of various ethnic groups to the south, east and west. Since pastoralists are generally warlike and prone to raiding their neighbours for animals, Konso society has a defensive posture. The hilltop villages are fortified, but the Konso?s are farmers, not warriors, and up at the top of these rugged, eroded slopes they must heroically yield a living off the land through a combination of improbably hard labour and careful stewardship of the earth.

Moving out onto the farmlands around the village, we see what Konso is most famous for it?s terracing. This has been constructed over much of the rugged landscape by centuries of communal labour. The terracing reduces soil erosion, and is carefully engineered to balance the competing needs of water infiltration into the ground and drainage in times of deluge, so that the terraces do not collapse. They are planted with sorghum, which is one of the most hardy dry-land grain crops there is, but it is still an annual grain crop, and will fail if the rains are inadequate. The sorghum is intercropped with a range of other species, especially annual legumes such as lablab bean, pigeon pea and various other types of climbing beans and bush beans. These obviously help maintain soil fertility. Other annuals include sunflowers, maize, millet, chick peas, pumpkins, amaranth, cotton and cassava. The cassava is in particular seen as something of a fall back. Should the sorghum crop fail it can be eaten even in droughts as the tubers which may have grown the previous year when there was good rain will sit in the ground without spoiling and can be harvested in times of food shortage. Alternatively it can be sold as a cash crop when it is not needed as it is quite valuable and is even exported to Kenya. Perennial shrubs grown on the extensive farmland include coffee and ch?at (Catha edulis — a non-food cash crop) and trees include Terminalia birowni, Cupressus sp. and Ziziphus sp. which are grown for timber. Terminalia (?weybetta? in afaan Konso) is the most frequently planted (or, rather, often allowed to grow naturally from seed) tree on the extensive farmlands. It is pruned to grow into long and relatively straight poles with the continual removal of side branches, which also provide animal fodder. It is so frequent on the extensive farmlands that it can be seen all across the landscape, defining the skyline where a crowd of its wiggly trunks usually stick up into the sky around the peaks of the ridges. Moringa is also planted on the terraces, though less densely than within the villages.