Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (6.1988/1991)

Fig. 1. Donkeys transporting two mareshas from the field. □ Esel transportieren zwei maresha vom Feld.


TILLAGE WITH THE TRADITIONAL MARESHA
IN THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS

By
Michael R. Goe

Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa be-
tween 3° and 18° North latitude and 33° and
48° East longitude. It shares borders with Su-
dan, Kenya, Somalia and the Djibouti Repub-
lic, and has 1100 km of coastline along the
Red Sea (fig. 2). Ethiopia has a land area of 1.2
million km2, of which 40% can be classified
as highlands above 1500 m (fig. 3). Approxi-
mately 85% of Ethiopia’s human population

of nearly 48 million people are employed in
or dependent on agriculture. Commercial
farming involving large-scale mechanisation
has never contributed significantly to Ethio-
pian agriculture. Most of the country’s agri-
cultural production continues to be provided
by subsistence smallholders, using human la-
bour and animal power, mainly paired oxen,
for tillage and cultivation.