Therefore both men and women engaged in cultivating, processing, and cutting leaves spread the disease. Too frequently, infected enset plants are disposed of near the enset farm, and, as such, they may be a potential source of the disease inoculum and its re-spread. Some farmers fallow the enset field and practice rotation with annual crops. By contrast, in the area that is relatively free of bacterial wilt, farmers practice control measures such as uprooting the infected bacterial wilt enset plants and keeping them away from the household, other enset plants, and cattle. Farmers also try to keep healthy plants away from contaminated farm and processing tools.
Some households decorticate and process infected enset plants at their early stage of infection.
The wealthier households have the choice of utilizing diseased plants or not. The poor have less choice and may use it for home consumption, purchase it, or receive it from more affluent households as payment for their labor or craft product. Farmers note that certain enset clones have relatively high tolerance against bacterial wilt and that particular clones revive after infection has occurred, while other clones of similar age group are wiped out by the disease. Many Gurage farmers report disease problems related to kocho stored in pits, especially for an extended period of time. The disease starts around the wall of the pit, causes a bad small, and the kocho becomes highly compacted because of dehydration.