Ethiopia Food Crisis - Mike Goldwater

Girls from the Kerenso Village, Wolayita, Ethiopia, collect plant material for their families to use as firewood.

River erosion at due to deforestation upstream is destroying agricultural land in Jaffa Village, Wolayita, Ethiopia.

Worknesh Teme and her husband Marcos Koisha inside their house with one of their two children. They have half a hectare of land, but are losing a significant portion to river erosion. "Life is just nothing, says Worknesh. "We don't have anything in the house to feed the children. I just go around begging."

Farmer Makaba Wasu sowing tef, the local grain crop, has already lost part of his one hectare field to river erosion, Jaffa Village, Wolayita.

A father and son bring newly cut timber into Soro town on their cart.

A hillside has been clear-cut. The land is being deforested because of two pressures: the need for firewood and the need for agricultural land, but the long-term effects on the environment can be profound.

Stone walls and terracing can protect agricultural land near Soro Town on steep slopes from erosion while land where animals are free to graze is easily eroded.

Cutting trees for construction. As this is particular forest is community-managed, whatever is cut down will be replanted.

A young child at an outpatient theraputic care centre in Bedessa having her upper arm measured. Red indicates that malnutrition is severe.

People in Soro Town wait to be admitted to a supplementary feeding centre.

A security guard uses a stick to control people in Soro Town waiting to be admitted to a supplementary feeding centre.

Corn and soya blended flour and oil are given to families assessed to be in need.

Masaret Linta, 17, with her malnourished 4 year old sister Brucknesh. Newly married with a baby, Masaret's husband will not let her feed her young sister. The only food the 4 year old eats is the food supplement sachets given out at the feeding centre.

Mamush Mamo, 9, walks home carrying firewood he has found in the forest that still remains on hills several kilometers from his village in Anka Dugana district.

Toma Belate in his house with one of his six children. "Life was difficult even before food crisis," he says. "The children have been sent to supplementary feeding centres as they are so thin. There is no food for them."

Toma Belate stands by eroded land cut by a fast-flowing seasonal river just above his half hectare farm.

“The land is just like a human being, it needs treatment,” said Mulugeta Beshada from the humanitarian agency Concern Worldwide in Ethiopia who commissioned this assignment in September 2008. “Our farmers rely on rainfall as a mainstay in agriculture. When there is no rain, there is no food production.

“The global food crisis contributes to the problem. As for climate change, here we are currently experiencing it directly: the recurrent drought, year in, year out, the landslides, caused by heavy rain. And our land is badly degraded because it has been farmed so intensively. Each year more nutrients are removed and the binding effect of the soil is gone.”