Author: Jeremy Cherfas

I’m OK with the idea of there being a diversity of calendars around the world. New Year, after all, should fall at some reasonably meaningful time, like right after the winter solstice, or around one of the equinoxes. Or, as in Ethiopia, around the end of the main rains.

Today.

To celebrate, the Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity Conservation has a long article celebrating and explaining Enkukatash. That word means Gift of Jewels. The article explains a few of them.

Sharron responded to my thoughts on extension in Africa with this remark:

Sounds like the kind of work Peace Corps volunteers have been doing for decades.

Not quite. Peace Corp volunteers do wonderful work, but in essence they parachute in and often, though by no means always, apply solutions that are not necessarily entirely appropriate to the situation in which they find themselves. What is needed is local people, locally trained, but exposed to a world of experience among similar farmers facing similar obstacles. Agreed, we don’t yet know how to fund this sustainably, or exactly how to establish the e-aspect of it. But those details could be worked out, with a will.

Meantime, here’s a little video interview with Getachew Tibuket, whose Farmer Field Schools have trained something like 25,000 farmers in Ethiopia. I’ve no idea what they are trained to do, but it sounds like a useful approach.

Other examples welcome.