PhytoWood-Synergies
Medicinal plants in Ethiopia: cultivation in small-scale agroforestry systems and establishment of regional value chains
- a project in cooperation with WoodCluster, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
"Innovation and development based on natural resources: sustainable value-added chains for pharmaceutical products and wooden biomass in Ethiopia"
Duration: July 2018 to April 2021
PhytoWood-Synergies - a joint project of several scientific institutions in Ethiopia and Germany - aims to identify ways to reduce the ever-widening gap between the increasing demand of a growing population and the dwindling supply of biological resources, due to deforestation and other natural habitats. Together with partners at praxis level, conditions will get examined under which the cultivation of important plant material on small agroforestry farms and home gardens are feasible. This project focuses especially on medicinal plants.
In Ethiopia, the population has nearly quadrupled in the last 50 years, whereas the land cover by (semi-) natural forests has shrunk to about 3%. With the loss of near-natural ecosystems, Ethiopia's extraordinary biodiversity faces acute threats - including many species with proven or supposed pharmacological properties.
Health care for rural people still depends mainly on traditional medicine, often practiced by healers with in-depth knowledge of efficacy of native plants. Approximately 1000 plant species are used medicinally in different parts of the country, of which more than 300 are well-known and appreciated. Healers sometimes must travel long distances to the last habitats of the species they need (where those plants might be subject to particularly high pressure of overuse).
Many crops grown by Ethiopian peasant families on their farms or in-home gardens are also used for medicinal purposes. This home-grown medicine is usually used only at the local level, within the family or neighborhood. The proportion of medicinal plants grown for marketing is generally low. However, cash crops (coffee, khat) as well as numerous tree woody species are also grown on the small-scale farms in the Sidama region.
Main objectives of PhytoWood-Synergies:
- Trying cultivation opportunities for regionally (and possibly nationally) marketable medicinal plants;
- Pharmacologically examining the medicinal effectiveness of the ingredients;
- Researching feasible marketing channels including relevant players and their interests;
- Investigating the processing steps necessary at the different levels of value-added chains for medicinally effective plant materials;
- Tackling ethical questions regarding the use of indigenous biological knowledge.
Through the development of economically viable and sustainable value chains for medicinal plants, their integration into rural agro-forestry systems shall be initiated.
Project partners
PhytoWood-Synergies is being worked on in cooperation with partner who have long-standing experience in the context of natural resources of Africa:
- The Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products, Chair of Tropical Forestry of TU Dresden works closely with the Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources at the Hawassa University, among other partners, within the framework of the joint research project WoodCluster. It aims to narrow the East African (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda) wood supply gap by elaborating sustainable solutions, based on farm-wood-production.
https://tu-dresden.de/forst/woodcluster -
Das Institut für Pharmazie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle (Abteilung und Forschungsgruppe für pharmazeutische Chemie) arbeitet eng mit der School of Pharmacy der Universität Addis Abeba zusammen, für "ökonomische, ökologische und therapeutische Nachhaltigkeit bei der Entwicklung von Arzneimitteln in Sub-Sahara Afrika"
https://trisustain.uni-halle.de/objectives
In addition to the scientific institutions involved in the PhytoWood-Synergies project, farmers of the South Ethiopian Kebele/village of Chefasine are among the important partners.
Project region
For the practical investigations, PhytoWood can rely on the structures already established in the WoodCluster project in the Sidama region, near Hawassa (formerly: Awassa). Hawassa is the capital of the "Region of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples" in southwestern Ethiopia, home to Hawassa University. Approximately 15 km south of the city, the Chefasine Kebele offers opportunities to develop innovative solutions together with local farmers.
The combined knowledge of pharmaceutical experts and forestry scholars of profound socio-economical background, as well as local people with wealth of practical experience, offers a unique opportunity to raise traditional medicine to a new level of quality, to bring new pharmacological insights, to preserve biodiversity, and - probably first of all - opens new chances for rural economies based on small-scale farms.