Ethiopia has planted over 566 million seedlings in a single day, on July 17. The number is a world record where Ethiopia smashed its own record that was set in 2019 by planting 350 million tree seedlings in 12 hours. Following the launching of the Green Legacy initiative in 2019 by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), Ethiopia is planting more than five billion seedlings in a single rainy season.
The ambitious move of seedling plantation aims to counter the effects of deforestation and climate change. To make the massive national seedling plantation initiative successful and to meet the target, Ethiopia has been applying technological advancements to follow the process, and to gather data from all sites. It is used in site selection and prepare site map using geographic information system (GIS) and locally developed software.
A software was developed to follow every development and to report the updates live from one center during the national campaign planned to plant 500 million seedlings on July 17. The software, connected with GIS, collected data from all sites and reported the updates live for the public from a situation room that was organized for this purpose.
By using technology, every update was live the whole day from all sites. Thanks to technology, immediately following the conclusion of the day’s plantation, Ethiopia announced that 566, 971,600 seedlings were planted within 12 hours in 302 thousand hectares of land across the country.
Agriculture Minister, Girma Amente (PhD) said during the eve of the plantation day that a technology developed by Ministry of Innovation and Technology was applied to follow the seedling plantation and to manage the data from across the country from one center. “Software is developed by Ministry of Innovation and Technology to collect the data from across the country automatically and to disseminate the data from one center
to the world,” he said. For him, this year’s record breaking seedling plantation was special as it shows the Ethiopia’s level in technology to the world. “It is beyond planting seedlings, we organize a situation room to manage the data from across the country and the application to manage the whole reporting process and mapping the sites was developed by local experts from Ministry of Innovation and Technology,” he added.
Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Ethiopian Space Science Institute, Ethio Telecom, Information Network Security Administration (INSA) and Artificial Intelligence Institute works jointly to organize the system in a situation room and to manage the whole process of technology in the seedling plantation process, Girma added.
For her part, Amhara State Agriculture Bureau Deputy Head, Almaz Gizew (PhD) told The Ethiopian Herald that at state level, digital technology is applied for the effectiveness of the green legacy initiative. According to Almaz, Amhara state is working to plant 1.7 billion seedlings in this plantation season in 26 thousand hectares of land. She added that map is made for each site which makes easier to gather data from each site and to report it easily.
The Deputy Head reiterated that the tree planting campaign would be checked and evaluated using the map and mobile applications. “By learning lessons from the past plantation seasons, in this plantation season we are applying digital systems including mobile applications to follow every development. Each prepared site is already mapped and every map contains the amount of hectare within it and the number of seedlings planted within the hectare,” Almaz noted.
As to her, the technology would help to know each site easily and the number of seedlings planted in each site. “The data is accessible online in our website” Almaz stated adding everyone can check in which site, Zone, woreda and kebelle are the seedlings planted. The second round Green Legacy initiative gives due focus for technology to manage the overall plantation. Speaking to the national media, Michael Wendimu, among the national software developers for this purpose said that the sites across the country are mapped on the developed software and connected with GIS.
“The software is connected with mobile application of experts in each site. Each expert from the sites sends data to the system and the system updates automatically. As the system receives huge data from across the country, to control failure or missing data, the system includes a back-up server that allows to sink it when the system become free,” Michale said. Through this mechanism, the whole day, data updates at national level were publicized from one center, he added. “It was successful and managed properly,” he added.
The developed system will take the data online which would help for researches, to follow the growth rate of the planted seedlings and beyond. “We can use it for feasibility study of projects in these particular areas especially with regard to carbon emission and other related issues,” Michael stated. Finally, using the available data, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that day from the situation room that 566, 971,600 seedlings were planted during the day.
By using locally developed software technology, Ethiopia was successfully managed the whole system of the record-breaking plantation day. The technology is becoming helpful in the ambitious plan of Ethiopia to plant 50 billion seedlings within eight years, 25 billion already achieved during the past four year.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 21 JULY 2023
