P1: Agricultural intensification for improving soil health, enhancing food security and climate change adaptation Southern Ethiopia

Description

Agriculture is the backbone of Ethiopia’s economy on which the livelihood of the majority of the population is relied on. At national level, land degradation and climate change are the prime limiting factors for both crop and livestock productivity. To combat these constraints, the country set strategies to use any available improved technologies during the growth and transformation plan II (GTP2). Ethiopia is currently undergoing rapid economic growth and transformation, with improvements in education, health and infrastructure development. However, the proportion of the population under extreme poverty is still high, though reduced from 38% to 29% during the last decade (WFP, 2014). Ethiopia remains one of the world’s most food insecure countries, where approximately one in three people live below the poverty line (WFP, 2014). In the GTP2, the Ethiopian government plans increases in agriculture of between 8% and 11% to contribute to the country’s overall plan to become a middle income country by 2025. Smallholder and pastoralist agriculture will continue to be the major source of agricultural development, which in turn will ensure rapid economic growth.

Continuous mono-cropping with limited external input has depleted soil fertility and negatively affected soil health in southern Ethiopia. By contrast, in certain parts of southern Ethiopia, for example in the Loka Abaya, Boricha and Shashamane districts, farmers traditionally (with their own indigenous knowledge) produce diverse types of crops in spatial and temporal arrangements; this inadvertently improves soil health, crop diversity, food security and climate change adaptation. These practices provide good examples of locally accepted agricultural intensification that will enhance production and productivity in the face of climate change. The sustainability of such traditional practices needs to be investigated and developed from using scientific understanding of sustainability, constrained by availability of resources. Farmers are great innovators, but the question we address here is how their local innovations can be scaled up to the wider community, districts, regions and the nation.

During the first phase of this project, issues on land degradation and soil health will be explored on farmers’ fields in selected districts of Sidama Zone. For the second phase, research on climate change mitigation and/or adaption to enhance the sustainability and food security of the farming community will be conducted.

Involved persons

• Dr. Girma Abera
• Dr. Sheleme Beyene
• PhD Scholar Tigist Yimer Belete

Involved institutions

• School of Plant and Horticulture Sciences, College of Agriculture
• Food Security Center (791)

Sponsors

Supported by the DAAD program Bilateral SDG Graduate Schools, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)