How does your garden grow?

摘要

GETAHUN SHUMULO is what the Ethiopian government calls a "model farmer". In the past he would toss seeds at random over his fields near Butajira, in the arable south. These days, using a plastic bottle in which he has cut a small hole, he plants them in pencil-straight lines. To keep the soil healthy he rotates his crops each year. Thanks to hardier seeds from the local agricultural office he now grows mostly maize, Ethiopia's cheapest staple. "If you do everything the government tells you, you can grow more of it every year," he says. After feeding his family of nine, he sells more than half his produce. Farmers like Getahun are sowing the seeds of transformation. The more they grow, the more money they have. The more they spend, the more jobs they help create in market towns and cities. Meanwhile, many rural people are giving up farming entirely and moving to the towns. On average, they work longer hours than they once did in the fields, and are more productive.