Pre-extension Demonstration of Moringa Preparation and Utilization Methods in East Shoa Zones of Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Moringa plants are among high value a tree belongs to Moringaceae family which consists of 13 species and they are highly distributed in Africa and southern Asia. Eastern Shoa zones of Oromia regional state in central part of Ethiopia have favorable agro climatic conditions for cultivation of Moringa tree species. However, there is a few numbers of local communities experiencing Moringa trees production and consumption in the area. Thus, the objective of this training and demonstration to promote, popularize and improve public awareness on Moringa on procedures of Moringa preparation for effective consumption and utilization in the areas. Household interview followed by theoretical training with practical demonstration were used for the demonstration. Random sampling methods were used to select 60 farmer households, 4 experts and 7 DA's. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis. The results indicated that the interviewed farmers about 76% have no Moringa on their farm and as a result most of them cannot identify Moringa visually. Similarly, many local farmers have no trees on their garden, and almost all of them (84%) have no information about Moringa unless few farmers with a piece of information on its medicinal uses with little hint on its preparation and utilization techniques. Many of the farmers only use Moringa leaves when they sick, especially for blood pressure. However the farmers have a desire to plant Moringa trees where as 40% of have a worry to get Moringa seedlings availability to plant and they claimed that this causes absence of Moringa trees on our farm. About 40% of the respondents were stated that, they only use Moringa for medicinal purpose, and in the same way about 40% of them are not previously used Moringa at all, while the rest 20% of them used as both for its medicinal and food source for some food type supplementation. However, many locals have interested in getting Moringa trees to plant. Hence, Popularization of Moringa should have to get attention by concerned stakeholders, especially on organizing continuous seeds and /or seedlings sources for local communities.