Farmers’ Practice on the Management and Establishment of Bamboo Stands in Bore Woreda, Guji Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Examining and evaluating the current body of knowledge about highland bamboo management is essential to the establishment and growth of bamboo stands. Farmers use traditional methods to manage the species. However, these indigenous ways of knowing and acting are not well documented. Therefore, the aim of this study was to characterize the techniques farmers in Ethiopia's Bor e district, Guji zone, Oromia region employ to develop and maintain bamboo stands in a sustainable manner. The selection of a sample of respondents for data collection was done through a multistage sampling technique. The first representative woreda (district) was selected from the Guji zone's bamboo-growing regions. Two representative Kebeles—the smallest unit of government in Ethiopia—were chosen at random from the chosen woreda. Face-to-face interviews, open and close-ended questionnaires, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions were used to gather primary data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Households had been involved in bamboo planting for almost twenty years on average. Plant spacing was 2 ± 0.9 meters on average. The households with greater incomes from the bamboo plants used management techniques including digging around the bamboo culms to loosen the soil and encourage rhizome regeneration and fencing to keep animals out. 83.7% of the respondents said they practiced management tasks such weeding, thinning, adding livestock manure, and/or composting. Since bamboo plantations still receive less attention from all stakeholders than annual crops, training should be provided to close the skill gap in propagation, processing, marketing, frost, pest and disease control, and plantation management