What Euthiopians are hungry for: two decades after its world-famous famine, Ethiopia is in trouble again. But they need more than just food.

Hailu Gebremariam stands in a tiny wheat field, proudly pointing to the fruits of his labor. Thanks to adequate rainfall this year, the golden grain has grown past his knees, and he hopes to harvest enough to feed his family of six and store some for seed to plant next year.

A devout Orthodox Christian, he prays "Thanks be to God"--but he also offers gratitude to Catholic Relief Services, which supplied him with the seed to plant this field. Last year's drought dried up his plants, leaving his family no choice but to eat the seeds he had set aside for the next season. That's a sure sign of desperation, since farmers will normally sell anything else--a chicken, farm tools, or the tin off their mud houses--before dipping into their seed.

"I had nothing to sow," says the 60-yearold farmer, who lives on his small parcel of land outside Mekele in the Ethiopian province of Tigray. "The Seed Fair Project provided me with money to purchase quality seeds. Now we are happy and ready to harvest."

Gebremariam, who plants and harvests his crop by hand, still dreams of owning an oxen or two to help plow his fields or of diversifying his crops to include teff, the tiny grain used to make the spongy bread called injera.

But neither of those dreams is likely to come true. Gebremariam, like most Ethiopian farmers, is lucky just to make it year to year without starving. Supplemental food aid from countries like the United States helps, but what's also needed is funding for infrastructure projects that will bring Ethiopian farmers into the 21st century--or at least into the 20th.

Never again?

Sadly, recurrent drought and other environmental issues such as erosion, deforestation, and desertification only add to an Ethiopian farmer's woes. The price drop in the international coffee market--a crop native to Ethiopia and its main export--further hurts those farmers trying to make more than a subsistence living. Government bureaucracy has slowed economic progress as well, not to mention the losses, both financial and personal, front the recent war with Eritrea. These long-term challenges are added to the more immediate problems of famine and malnutrition from last year's drought.

With its economy so heavily based on agriculture--it accounts for half of the GDP, 85 percent of exports, and 80 percent of employment--systemic change in food production is needed if Ethiopia is ever to shed its image as the world's beggar and prevent repeats of the world-famous famine of 1984-85. That tragedy put Ethiopia on the map for many Americans. Images of skeletal people dying in the streets while scrounging for food shocked and horrified the world community, which responded with a massive influx of food.

Although there have been improvements since the 1980s, especially in governmental preparedness for food shortages, too many Ethiopians still don't have enough to eat. And a cultural custom that dictates that men eat their fill first leaves women and children the most vulnerable to hunger.

Last summer, CRS and officials from other relief organizations proclaimed the Ethiopian famine "the greatest humanitarian crisis facing any single nation in the world today," with more than 12 million people relying on food aid just to survive. "Twenty years ago, when we saw an equally terrible situation in Ethiopia, we swore this can't happen again, and it's happening," CRS president Ken Hackett said in August.

Reports last fall confirmed that diagnosis. "The malnutrition problem has been critical," says Sister Nigist Boricho, a nurse at the St. Mary Health Clinic in Edaga Hamus near Adigrat. "Those who come are very poor and are looking for food, not medicine. The small children are all malnourished."

Aid workers estimate that the average Ethiopian farmer can grow only enough food to feed a family for nine months of the year. During the lean season, two or three months before harvest, people often eat the prickly cactus that grows wild. Some are able to supplement their family income by working as day laborers, earning a few birr a day (less than $1).

A drop in the bucket

Food isn't the only thing in short supply. Erratic rainfall and a lack of irrigation makes water a scarce resource; safe drinking water is even rarer. So water and sanitation projects are a priority. Thanks to a new pump and purifier from the Social and Development Office of the Catholic Church in Adigrat, the families in Kokeb-Tsibah no longer drink from the dirty May Godif River.

"We had a problem because we and our animals were drinking contaminated water," says Zeray Hadgu, a member of the community's water committee. "There were worms in the water, and we were getting stomach pain."

The pump serves about 350 people and 300 livestock, although during the recent drought nearly 10 times that many depended on it. Young girls walk several miles to the water station and carry heavy water containers on their backs up steep hills to bring it home. A fee of a few cents a month pays for a guard and other upkeep.

But farmers also need water for their crops. In some regions, the average rainfall is only 23 inches per year, the majority of it coming during the rainy season called meher, which lasts from May to September. Rain also falls during belg in February and March. During the dry season, some farmers grow chickpeas (the basis of the spicy shiro dip) because they require little moisture.

In the Rift Valley, near the town of Wonji, just south of the capital of Addis Ababa, the double whammy of drought and deforestation has made irrigation a must. But while the Wonji sugar plantation can afford an extensive irrigation system, most small farmers can only dream about such a modern convenience. In fact, less than 1 percent of Ethiopia's land is irrigated--an extremely low number given the prevalence of farming.

In the Tigray region, a relief society provided materials for shallow wells to farmers willing to dig their own. "But we saw that the number of women getting these wells was very low because they don't have the physical strength to dig it or the money to hire someone," says Alem Berhane of the Adigrat Diocese, which has since helped 40 female-headed households dig wells.

Demekech Kashay, who greets visitors with a high-pitched chant and a smile, is a recipient of one of those wells. After her husband was shot during the war with Eritrea, Kashay took over the family farm, with the help of her seven children. Thanks to the steady supply of water she draws by hand from her new well, she is able to grow peppers, lettuce, and tomatoes not only to supplement her family's diet but also to sell.

Lack of ownership

But even with unlimited water, farmers are limited by their small plots of land. Although Ethiopia is unique in Africa for maintaining its freedom from colonialism (except during the brief Italian occupation of 1936-41), in 1974 the last emperor, Halle Selassie, was overthrown by communists who seized all the land. That regime was toppled in 1991, but the democratic government still owns the land and leases it to peasant farmers. This land-lease policy leaves farmers with few options: they cannot sell or rent their land; they lose it if they move and must divide their own small parcel among descendants.

"Rural people have very little freedom because they're tied to the land," explains Dennis Latimer, agriculture and natural resource management head for CRS-Ethiopia.

Their small plots (usually less than 3 acres) also discourage resting the soil, already weary from erosion caused by deforestation. Because nearly all heating and cooking is done over wood fires (even in cities), people scavenging for wood have cleared the trees whose roots are needed to hold the soil in place. Reforestation programs are trying to prevent all of Ethiopia's topsoil from literally floating or blowing away.

Small plots also discourage farmers from experimenting with different seed varieties. "They don't want to risk it," says Amanuel Hedera, project coordinator for the Watershed Project in Mekele, which introduces higher-yielding and drought-resistant varieties, and new products like the sweet potato.

"People would have more initiative if they knew the land was theirs," says Father Giuseppe Giovanetti, an Italian missionary in charge of development projects for the Wonji Catholic Church. "But the government is afraid to give the land to the people?' In some areas, experiments with giving people certificates as if they owned the land have led to higher production, he says.

He also believes Ethiopia needs infrastructure so its people can ultimately become independent. "Ethiopians are very religious," he explains about the predominantly Orthodox but also heavily Muslim country. "They say, 'It's up to God whether to send the rain.' It is true. But we also have to do what we can to help ourselves out."

Anne Bousquet, country representative for CRS-Ethiopia, believes empowerment is the long-term solution to Ethiopia's poverty. "Too many people are in a vicious cycle of poverty. There is no cushion for disaster," she says. "It's going to require a huge injection of resources just to get everyone to have two cows, a healthy family, and enough food."

But donors--including the U.S. government--are less willing to give monetary aid than food aid. In fact, many U.S. farmers are dependent on the government food aid contract for their own survival.

"But we're trying to push that it's really inhumane to wait until people are starving," says Bousquet. "You should help them when they're capable of being helped. Otherwise you're always behind the curve."

RELATED ARTICLE: Ethiopia's AIDS challenge.

With an infection rate of about 7 percent, AIDS seems to be a less severe problem in Ethiopia than in other African countries. But that number is deceptive. In the capital city of Addis Ababa, the rate rises to 18 percent, and lack of testing prevents a true picture of the problem. One hospital reports that 50 to 60 percent of its patients are HIV-positive. And, given Ethiopia's massive population, even conservative estimates translate into 3 million with HIV.

"It's a growing problem," says Anne Bousquet of CRS-Ethiopia. "The culture does not promote practices for overcoming the problem. Women are so marginalized they're not in a position to protect themselves or make a choice."

Forced sex, multiple wives, and lack of education make women especially vulnerable. In the tribal culture women do the majority of the work-cooking, cleaning, raising children, gathering water and firewood, and working in the fields-but receive few of the benefits. Once girls reach the age of 10 or 12, they are susceptible to being kidnapped, raped, and taken as wives. Girls usually stop attending school before boys, if they go at all.

Most humanitarian and development projects incorporate AIDS education into their programs. But church-sponsored ones usually only cover the A (Abstinence) and the B (Be faithful), not the C (Condoms). Still, myths persist. Many believe you can tell if someone has AIDS by looking at them, and those who are infected are ostracized. Says Bousquet: "Behavior change is our biggest challenge."

Text and photos by HEIDI SCHLUMPF, managing editor of U.S. CATHOLIC, whose trip to Ethiopia was a prize from Catholic Relief Services for the Eileen Egan Journalism Award.