Food for work (埃塞俄比亚)

Food for work is an incentive given to land users for the activities they perform by participating in land management activities.

Aims / objectives: Food grain and edible oil at a rate of 3kg/day of grain and 200gm/day of oil is paid for an activity undertaken by a person. Land users who are selected to participate in the approach should be able bodied to undertake activities in land management and are paid the amount indicated for a given amount of work done according to the norm. A person is required to perform 10m/day soil bund to be paid the rate described above. Other activities have different norms. There are some land users who could do more than this and are entitled to be paid more according to the norm.

Methods: FFW's role in soil conservation work: 1. it has motivated the involvement of many farmers 2. Help alleviate food shortages 3. Enabled create assets 4. Strengthened the functioning of Kebele Administration. The approach was implemented through a project initiated in 1990 in the woreda. Problems addressed by the approach included: soil erosion, sever gully and land degradation, loss of cultivated lands, absence of legislations, shortage of fuel and construction material and grazing land shortages. The direct causes for the problems were identified to be overgrazing, vegetation clearing, steep slopes cultivation and poor agricultural practices. Main constraints hindering proper implementation of technologies included lack of community collaboration, lack of sense of ownership and shortage of trained extension workers.