The Farmers of Gaho 1998
Distributed by Bullfrog Films, PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547; 800-543-FROG (3764)
Produced by Street Symphoney Project/TVE
Director n/a
VHS, color, 21 min.
High School - Adult
Agriculture, Sociology, Anthropology
Date Entered: 11/09/2018
Reviewed by Buzz Haughton, Shields Library, University of California at DavisThis film takes the viewer to the village of Gaho in the Konso region of southern Ethiopia. The region is mountainous with a semiarid (about 16 inches of precipitation annually on average) climate. The video explores ways the tightly-knit community of Gaho maximizes yields from its crops--sorghum, sunflower, rapeseed, coffee, cassava, yam among others--in a land of erratic and undependable rainfall. Primary to the farmers of Gaho is preservation and enhancement of their soil, accomplished through constant weeding, composting and erecting of stone terraces in hilly terrain and earth embankments on level lands to trap water and prevent erosion. Although each farmer has his own plot of land, cultivation and maintenance are communal endeavors; a common area is tilled and planted, and the yield of this area is stored for distribution during times of scarcity.
Farm Africa, a nongovernmental organization subventioning sustainable agricultural practices, has enabled Gaho's farmers to experiment with new sorghum varieties resistant to pests and requiring less moisture. It has also enabled Gaho's women to purchase livestock to be used for meat and sold in the region for supplemental income.
The Farmers of Gaho demonstrates that with careful attention to sustainable agricultural development and thoughtful foreign assistance designed to enhance indigenous people's ability to care for themselves, the outlook for farmers in ecologically sensitive areas of the Third World need not be bleak. Highly recommended for libraries with substantial collections in sustainable agriculture.