Three years ago Admasu Balli’s father died, leaving him half a hectare of land with around 200 mature enset trees (false banana), a budding field of eucalyptus and some fine grazing land. Overnight he went from being a poor farmer to being middle class. These days instead of thinking about how he can feed his family, he is focused on saving enough money to buy a second ploughing ox

With more than one hectare of land, Admasu Balli needs a lot of hands to help him prepare his fields. Admasu will invite his neighbours to help him. In return he will give them food and drinks.

Admasu is planting wheat on some of his land like his father always did. It is a crop that grows well in the area. But this year he also plans to plant more of his land with maize. The new highland varieties are more productive than the old local hybrids. And though maize takes many months to mature at this altitude, it is less risky than wheat, which is often affected by deadly wheat rust.

Since he inherited his father’s land with many mature enset trees, Admasu’s family produces a lot of high quality kocho (processed enset), which is sold in Addis Ababa and beyond. With his new land his yearly cash income has almost doubled over what it used to be. And Admasu can use the cash—because now he has a large family to support. His newfound wealth allowed him to marry a second wife and he now has eight children to feed.

Most of the year Admasu is self-sufficient. But by the middle of the meher season, his food stores are almost always running too low to feed his family, so he has to buy maize and barley on the local market. He also relies on the market for household products like salt, soap and kerosene. To get the necessary cash he sells shallots, garlic and cabbage and sometimes kocho as well. But the enset trees are his safety net for when things go wrong, so he prefers to keep these assets for difficult times.

In the last few years Admasu has also tried to invest in new sources of income. He has just bought a sewing machine with which he and his wife patch clothes for people in the area. “It’s not a business that earns me a great deal of money, but every little bit helps. I keep thinking about that second plough ox—not only would it help me in my fields, but I could also earn some extra money by hiring them out to other farmers in my area.”