A study case on coffee (Coffea arabica): Limu Coffe - IRD

4.1.3) Small-holder or garden coffee
In Ethiopia, coffee is essentially a family crop for which contribution to national
production is estimated around 95% of which 50% in home gardens. Generally these coffee
crops are not taller than three fetchassa (1 fetchassa = 0.25 ha).
It is a type of coffee management which is indeed located in the vicinity of the
owner’s dwelling. There is usually some cultivation and water and soil conservation
tendencies, intercropping with annuals (maize, vegetables) or perennials (enset, fruit and
shade trees), deposition of refuse under trees. Systematic pruning is unknown, competition
with perennial weeds is severe and spacing is irregular. Yields are high.
These farmers-owned-trees are inside or surrounding houses, but could mean farmers
coffee plots located far away from home in which cultural practices are well accomplished.
New varieties are planted in the framework of extension programmes. There is no primary
forest, or it is rare. Often two or three cultivars (improved or local selected trees) are met,
coffee trees planted in lines and soil kept clean. It could be situated in forest. But it doesn’t
belong to the agro-forests’ system because of the higher human interferences. Semantically
speaking, we could say that garden coffee regroups home garden coffee and these coffee
plots.
Illustration 18: Model farmer of Caakaawoo kebele 2) private nursery, 4) coffee and honey, 5) shade
trees: Croton machrostachiyus, Cordia Africana and Albizia gummifera (Bossolasco, 28 th June 2009)
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