Between 2006 and 2009 iDE UK and drinks company Innocent helped set up over 250 apple farms in Ethiopia - providing small family run farms with additional income, improving their livelihoods and making apples readily available for all. iDE UK provided access to low cost irrigation systems to farmers, set them up with robust seedlings and trained them in apple husbandry (looking after the trees, growing the best fruit and so on).
This project proved what iDE already knew - that poor Ethiopian smallholder farmers can use innovative irrigation technologies to grow high value crops and earn a good living. In Addis the price fetched for apples is incredible – as apples are often hard to come by in Ethiopia - the dry conditions and limited water supply mean that not many people grow them. As a result of this success iDE has expanded to their work to support over 60,000 farming households (360,000 people) today.
Read more at: Business Fights Poverty
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