Improving agriculural principles and practices is an important part of how Hopethiopia works alongside the local farmers to help increase productivity and create diversification.
We have many vegetable gardens that produce a wide variety of species, many of them that are not common to the area. Each home at the Children's Village has its own garden where the house mom's and kids work and learn together to grow vegetable for their home and to share with others.
We have a wonderful apple orchard where hundreds of "scions" and "root stock" grow ". Here we produse many hundreds of seedlings. Many are given to local farmers to expand their knowledge and agriculutural opportunity.
Our chicken project has produced over 30,000 eggs, many of which go directly to the children's village to enhance their diet.
We have a fish farm that grows very healthy tilapia and is a very unique project to the local project area.
We have also grown different species of grains such as Teff, Wheat, and Barley. We have learned with the traditional practices of Ox and plough manual labour to understand the challenges that are faced by local farmers and how mechanization might help.
Other specialized projects include:
- Fruit orchard – we are now growing a variety of highland fruits including- Oranges, Mandarins, Lemons, Limes, Pears, Peaches, Pomegranates, Avocados
- Coffee plantation – we are now growing lots of coffee on the Hopethiopia lands
- Livestock program – we are now growing sheep and have a dairy cow that produces thousands of litres of milk for the children
- Advanced agriculture – We have a nice modern New Holland tractor that helps us greatly in many aspects of farming as well as our construction projects
- Vermiculture – we have a great “worm farm” that is helping us in our composting and land nutrient projects/
- Permaculture and Regenerative agriculture – Hopethiopia uses many of these newer concepts in agriculture to make our projects more eco friendly and sustainable.