Some facts about the promotion of EM in Ethiopia

Woljeejii Agricultural Industry (WAI) been collaborating with NGOs and development partners and the Ministry of Agriculture. WAI has been assisted to participate in a number of training where technical staff dealing with agriculture and livestock, input dealers and representatives of beneficiaries were targeted. Such assistance has led to the establishment of a number of EM dealers in Oromia, Tigrai, Amhara and SPP. Most of the beneficiaries are using EM derivatives for livestock feed improvement and for soil fertility and others for odor control.

WAI is also promoting EM in higher learning institutions. Two students from Jima University have produced Masters degree thesis on the efficacy of EM for livestock feed and for compost preparation. Two other students from Mekele University have also carried out research on EM where one was addressing fertility enhancing on degraded hill side terraces and the other on the treatment of campus liquid waste.

The Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research has conducted a number of verification research. The findings have been published on their publication “supporting EM technoloby”. Debre Tabor University researcher have also published on International Journal or Science and Research Publication vol. 7, Issue 6 June 2017. This finding concluded that EM and molasses treatment is superior when compared to Urea and molasses feed treatment both in milk production and cost wise.

EM is popular among washed coffee processors. It has been effective to reduce the offensive odor that is otherwise emitted by the decaying effluent in lagoons. EM is also used to accelerate the preparation of compost from the coffee husk which is recycled as organic fertilizer.
The Ethiopian Horticulture Producers and Exporters Association has, in alliance with Woljeejii, has successfully promoted the use of EM for the production of flower waste into useful recyclable compost and for recycling waste water.