Kafta Humera - Agriculture

Agriculture

A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 11,606 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 1.89 hectares of land. Of the 21,950 hectares of private land surveyed in Kafta Humera, 93.19% was under cultivation, 0.03% pasture, 4.85% fallow, 0.73% woodland, and 1.19% was devoted to other uses. For the land under cultivation in this woreda, 31.24% is planted in cereals, 0.94% in pulses, 60.87% in oilseeds, and 0.03% in vegetables. The number of hectares planted in fruit trees is missing. 68.8% of the farmers both raise crops and livestock, while 27.97% only grow crops and 3.23% only raise livestock. Land tenure in this woreda is distributed amongst 74.74% owning their land, 25.09% renting, and those holding their land under other forms of tenure 0.17%.

The economy of this woreda is centered on the production of sesame, which by 1996 replaced cotton as the primary cash crop. Sesame is a high-value edible oil that is exported to Israel, Turkey, the Middle East, Japan and China. Over 400 large-scale investors cultivate an average 600 hectares of sesame, while local farmers cultivate up to 12 hectares each. Investors cultivate 58% of the 186,000 hectares of cultivable land, and local farmers the remaining 42%. Sesame production is labor intensive, especially during the weeding and harvesting period, attracting an average of 200,000 workers from the rest of the Tigray Region, northern Amhara, and Sudan each year. Another important crop in Kafta Humera is sorghum, which both investment and local farmers cultivate as both a cash and a food crop.