Sustainable land management through market oriented commodity development: Case studies from Ethiopia

Land degradation has been identified as severe environmental problem in Ethiopia, especially since the early 1970s. Because there is significant degradation on cultivated lands in Ethiopia, there is potentially high payoff to addressing degradation in the country. In this paper we focus mainly on the effect of short-term benefits to farmers and the explicit considerations of the linkages between natural resource management and market-oriented commodity development on the adoption and scaling out of sustainable land management practices. We hypothesize that linking natural resource management with market-oriented commodity development enhances sustainable land management by providing farmers with short-term benefits. We test this hypothesis with analysis of case studies of four districts in Ethiopia. Two of the case studies deal with the linkage between grazing land development and market-oriented livestock development, and the other two deal with the linkage between conservation agriculture and market-oriented crop production. Results indicate that, indeed, direct linkages of natural resource management with market-oriented commodity development that have profitable market opportunities can enhance sustainable land management. Results imply that participatory approaches to the appraisal of community resources, identification and prioritization of key constraints of commodity development, and implementation of interventions greatly facilitate adoption and scaling out of interventions

Smallholder-based fruit seedling supply system for sustainable fruit production in Ethiopia: lessons from the IPMS experience

Ethiopia has a diverse agroecology and many areas are suitable for growing temperate, subtropical or tropical fruits. Substantial areas receive sufficient rainfall and many lakes, rivers and streams could also be used to support fruit production. Despite this potential, the total land area under fruits is very small and mainly smallholder-based. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD), the area under fruits is about 43,500 ha with a total annual production of about 261,000 metric tonnes of which less than 2% is exported. Many supply and demand reasons are associated with the poor performance of the sub-sector including technical, organisational and institutional factors. The lack of sufficient supply of planting materials of improved fruit varieties/cultivars and accompanying knowledge were identified as key constraints during a participatory rural appraisal (PRA) study conducted by the IPMS project in 2005. This is because the source of planting materials for tropical, sub-tropical improved and temperate fruits are limited to a few mostly government operated sites, which are located far away from potential planting places. To alleviate this problem, IPMS in collaboration with district Offices of Agriculture and Rural Development (OoARD) initiated smallholder farmer-based improved fruit seedling supply system in many of its project districts. This initially required the establishment of improved mother trees and farmer capacity building on nursery and fruit tree management, among others. The objective of this paper is, to share the IPMS experiences in the establishment of sustainable farmer-based improved fruit seedling supply system which contributed to the improvement of livelihoods of many farmers. Nursery operators earned between 100 and 11,000 USD equivalent from sale of seedlings/suckers or fruits in a season. The lessons learnt indicate that farmer-based fruit nurseries a) can be established by linking the right public and private sector actors for knowledge, skills development and input supply b) are cost effective compared to the current suppliers, in most cases c) convinced all actors that farmers can handle the seemingly difficult grafting/budding techniques d) created employment opportunities for the landless youth, individual male and female farmers, e) generates a significant income for nursery operators, f) reduce transport cost of the seedlings significantly. This paper also uses a spatial analysis tool, DIVA-GIS software, to analyse likelihood of adaptability of four fruit species to a wider area within the study districts and the likely production potential and value

Improving on-farm water management by introducing wetting-front detector tools to smallholder farms in Ethiopia

Global Affairs Canad

Improving on-farm water management by introducing wetting front detectors to small scale irrigators in Ethiopia

Smallholder irrigation to improve food security in the dry season as well as economic and demographic growth within Ethiopia is developing rapidly. However, the long term sustainability of increased irrigated production, together with degradation of soils (and associated water bodies) may be irreparably damaged by inappropriate watering schedules. In irrigation schemes, over-irrigation results in periodic water scarcity issues and in some cases sodicity. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether using wetting front detectors (WFD), a simple mechanical irrigation advice tool, would give farmers the right knowledge on when and how much to irrigate. Therefore, improving sustainable on-farm water management without negatively affecting crop and water productivity while fostering a more equitable water distribution within the scheme. The study, conducted in different regions of Ethiopia, covered various agro-ecological zones and soil conditions with over 200 farmers irrigating cereals or vegetables. Farmers and water user associations were trained on using the WFD to irrigate and distribute water within the scheme. Irrigation and crop performance was evaluated against control plots, having the same crop variety and management but traditional irrigation practices. Reduction in applied irrigation volume due to the WFD differed within and between sites due to furrow length, soil texture and farmer experience. Although yield increases were highly variable between farmers due to differences in farm management and crop variety cultivated, there was a positive effect of WFD on water productivity. Water productivity on average increased by 9 % whereas yields for the different crops increased between 13 and 17 %. In some cases the volume of water saved could double the cropped area. The reduction of irrigation events, when using the WFD, led to labour saving (up to 11 working days per ha) and fuel saving (between 50 and 150 US$ per ha). In both sites, farmers positively evaluated the scheduling tool, acknowledging that they learned to save water without negatively impacting crop productivity. The study showed that by providing access to when and how much to irrigate, farmers can positively adjust their on-farm water management resulting in more sustainable usage of their natural resources

Feeding hungry and thirsty soils increases yield and protects the environment: Some results of WFD experiments in LIVES

Global Affairs Canad

Comparison of SSR and AFLP analysis for genetic diversity assessment of Ethiopian arabica coffee genotypes

Knowledge of genetic diversity within and among genotypes of any crop is fundamental for estimation of the potential genetic gain in a breeding programme and effective conservation of available genetic resources. Currently, different molecular marker techniques are being developed for measuring genetic diversity. Comparison among molecular marker techniques is important for effective marker selection. However such types of efforts are rare for arabica coffee. This study was conducted to compare the efficiency of simple sequence repeat (SSR) analysis for determining genetic relationships of 28 Coffea arabica L genotypes collected from different parts of Ethiopia with work previously done using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis. A total of 22 SSR fragments were amplified and compared with 712 previously amplified AFLP fragments. AFLP and SSR markers were positively and significantly correlated (0.217) in estimating genetic similarity among genotypes. The average genetic similarity coefficient calculated using SSR markers was much lower (0.560 with a range of 0.286-1.000) compared to AFLP markers (0.915 with a range of 0.860-0.982) indicating the higher information content of SSR markers. AFLP markers distinguished all genotypes, while SSR markers distinguished 64.3% of the genotypes. Results indicated that AFLP markers were more efficient compared to SSR markers for characterization of the evaluated coffee genotypes