Overview
Altitudes in this woreda range from 1500 to over 2000 meters above sea level. Although the highest point in Ada'a, and in Misraq Shewa, is Mount Yerer which lies on the border with Akaki, Mount Zuqualla is also a prominent peak as well as a notable landmark, as the monastery of Saint Gebre Manfas Qeddus is located on it. Rivers include the Modjo, Belbela, Wedecha and Dukem. Other bodies of water include the five crater lakes around Debre Zeyit: Lake Bishoftu, Lake Hora, Lake Bishoftu Guda, Lake Koriftu and the seasonal Lake Cheleklaka. Important forests include the government-protected Dirre-Garbicha and the Tedecha and Oude community forests. A survey of the land in this woreda shows that 51% is arable or cultivable, 6.4% pasture, 7.4% in community, regional and natural forests, and the remaining 34.8% is considered degraded or otherwise unusable. Legumes and sugar cane are important cash crops; Ada'a produces the most teff, wheat and legumes in Misraq Shewa.
Industry in the woreda includes 8 licensed mining enterprises, both private and state-owned, two flour mills (one publicly owned, the other privatized in 1996), 26 small industries that employed 327 people, as well as 202 wholesalers, 172 retailers and 12 service providers. There were 42 Farmers Associations with 26,525 members and 26 Farmers Service Cooperatives. All of the farmers' cooperatives are member of the Erer Farmers' Cooperative Union, which includes cooperatives from two other woredas. The major micro-finance institution operating in Ada'a Chukala is the Oromiyaa Credit and Saving SC, which opened a branch in Debre Zeit around 2001; however the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia extends credit to the cooperatives to market their grain. Ada'a Chukala has 40 kilometers of dry-weather and 93 of all-weather road, for an average road density of 81.3 kilometers per 1000 square kilometers. About 27% of the rural, 100% of the urban and 52% of the total population has access to drinking water.
Read more about this topic: Ada'a