Donation of Homegardens to Household Income Generation in Ginir District, Southeast Ethiopia

Home-garden agroforestry and its woody species component have great roles to play in the livelihood improvement and household income and supplementary food for smallholder farmers. However, there is limited quantitative empirical evidence on the contribution of multilayer fruit tree or Coffee based homegarden agroforestry practices. Therefore, this study was initiated to assess or examine home-garden and its components (perennial woody species, livestock and annual crops) agroforestry practices and its contribution of household income for sustaining livelihood at Ginir District. Data was collected through a combination of focus group discussions, key informant interviews, household survey and field inventories. A total of 70 respondents from three kebeles were interviewed and data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and econometric analysis. The results revealed that the status of fruit based or Coffee based homegarden agroforestry in the study area varies with land holding size and wealth status. <i>Persea Americana, Mangifera indica, Coffee, Catha edulis Psidlum huajaval</i> (zayituna), <i>Annona senegalensis (gishita), and citrus species </i>were fruit trees and cash plants which major woody species types of plants species components grown in the system in the study area. The overall contribution of household annual mean incomes from the existed agroforestery practices of the study areas were 84%, 8.1%, 5.33% from homegarden, parkland, farm boundary plantation and the rest from others respectively. The existed home garden agroforestery was the majors and principal mean income of the study area HHs and according to homegardens components 7%, 85% and 8.41 were from livestock’s, woody species, and crops respectively. Additional accordingly the wealth category or status mean annual income from homegarden woody species component poor, medium and rich households was 72.3%, 88% and 91.4% from the total income respectively. Further studies of examining of the market value chain, areas of intervention along the chain and economic value of the home garden agroforestry components are needed to fully understand the contribution of home-garden agroforestery. It can be concluded that homegardens and its woody species components are important to rural people for food and cash income generation.