It is critical to develop technologies that simultaneously improve agricultural production, offset impacts of climate change, and ensure food security in a changing climate. Within this context, considerable attention has been given to climate-smart agricultural practices (CSA). This study was conducted to investigate the effects of integrating different CSA practices on crop production, soil fertility, and carbon sequestration after being practiced continuously for up to 10 years. The CSA practices include use of soil and water conservation (SWC) structures combined with biological measures, hedgerow planting, crop residue management, grazing management, crop rotation, and perennial crop-based agroforestry systems. The landscapes with CSA interventions were compared to farmers’ business-as-usual practices (i.e., control). Wheat (Triticum sp.) yield was quantified from 245 households. The results demonstrated that yield was 30–45% higher under CSA practices than the control (p < 0.05). The total carbon stored at a soil depth of 1 m was three- to seven-fold higher under CSA landscapes than the control. CSA interventions slightly increased the soil pH and exhibited 2.2–2.6 and 1.7–2.7 times more total nitrogen and plant-available phosphorus content, respectively, than the control. The time series Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) revealed higher soil moisture content under CSA. The findings illustrated the substantial opportunity of integrating CSA practices to build climate change resilience of resource-poor farmers through improving crop yield, reducing nutrient depletion, and mitigating GHG emissions through soil carbon sequestration.

Summary: Grain sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is the major cereal crop used as staple crop in the arid and semi-arid regions of Ethiopia. Low sorghum yields are attributed to soil, climate and topographic factors. We investigated sorghum yield response to factorial combination of nitrogen and phosphorous (NP) as well as potassium (K), sulphur (S) and zinc (Zn), and how the position of farmers’ fields belonging to different landscape positions (i.e., upslope, mid-slope, and foot slope) could explain fertilizer response and yield variability. The analysis in this study made use of dataset from two sets of on-farm experiments where trials were set at two farmers’ fields for NPKS and three farmers’ fields for NPZn experiments in each landscape position. The experiments were implemented at two sorghum-growing locations (i.e., Hayk and Sirinka) in parts of the north-eastern Amhara region in Ethiopia. Sorghum yield response to fertilizer application was strongly linked to the spatial variation along landscape positions and varied over locations. Fertilizer response was significantly higher at foot slopes compared to mid-slopes and upslope positions, where fields at foot slopes exhibited relatively homogeneous responses. Application of combined nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilizers, landscape position and the interaction of fertilizer application and landscape positions strongly affected sorghum yield. There was a linear and significant increase in sorghum yield with the increase in the NP rates. The combined application of NP with different levels of KS as well as NP with Zn fertilizer rates did not result in significant yield difference. The results indicated that local factors were much more influential when accounting for the heterogeneity in sorghum yield response to fertilizer. This further acknowledges the importance of a landscape-based fertilizer management approach to respond yield potential variability related with the farmers’ fields and landscape environment. Further investigation is needed to develop homogeneous fertilizer response units based on spatial variability of soil and topographic attributes along the landscape.

Ethiopia has made efforts to tackle the challenges of low crop and livestock productivity and degradation of land resources through various rural development strategies. However, increasing demands for food, animal feed, fuel, and income-generating activities are putting pressure on the land. In this paper, we describe the production pressure and competition between crop and livestock production, quantify rates of land-use/cover (LULC) changes, and examine driving forces and consequences of land conversion. The study was conducted in Gudo Beret watershed, North Shewa Zone of Amhara region, Ethiopia. It used a combination of methods including remote sensing, household interviews, field observations, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. Supervised and unsupervised image classification methods were employed to map LULC classes for 31 years (1984–2016). The results of satellite remote sensing revealed that 51% of the land in the study area was subject to accelerated land conversions. The household survey results indicated that feed resources and grain production pressures were 1.43 and 1.34 t ha⁻¹ respectively. The observed annual changes in plantation and settlement areas were 2.6% and 2.9%. This was mainly at the expense of bushland and grazing land systems. Cropland increased (0.4% year⁻¹) while grazing land reduced (3.5% year⁻¹) under contrasting dynamics and competitive changes. An increase in human and livestock populations and farm expansion were major drivers of land conversion that adversely affected household livelihoods and the natural ecosystem. The consequences of these pressures resulted in a lack of animal feed, low crop-livestock productivity, and a reduction in natural vegetation coverage. We suggest that sustainable land resource management, more integrated crop-livestock production, and the use of productivity-enhancing technologies could play a role in managing competition for land resources.

Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for Next Generation (RISING) project has conducted action research on livestock feed and forages starting in 2012 to bridge gaps on feed availability and quality. The objectives of this paper are to share approaches on how Africa RISING project enabled smallholder farmers to intensify feed and forage resources; present research findings of selected cultivated forages, fodder trees, and postharvest feed and forage utilization innovations; and highlight key lessons evolving from the feed and forage action research and scaling interventions. The project established partnership with CGIAR and local partners, conducted participatory need assessment, prioritized researchable issues, identified and validated different forages and utilization innovations, and created development partnership to facilitate wider scaling. Training activities and multistakeholder platforms were used to enhance cross learning of project partners. The cultivated forages grown under farmers’ fields and management conditions provided high biomass yield of good nutritional quality. For instance, oat (Avena sativa L.)–vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) mixture, lablab [Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet], vetch–desho grass (Pennisetum pedicellatum Trin.) intercropping, sweet lupin (Lupinus albus L.), alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), and fodder beet (Beta vulgaris L.) yielded on average 15, 3.4, 5.5, 2.9, 15.3, and 20.2 t dry matter ha⁻¹, respectively. Animal response trials showed an increase in milk yield of 30–50% with supplementation of oat–vetch mixture and fodder beet. Feed wastage was considerably reduced (>30%) due to the use of feed troughs and storage sheds, with high economic incentives to invest in such innovations. Integrating and intensifying feed and forage resources and postharvest innovations at farm level remains a priority to improve livestock productivity and food security.

The practice of applying fertilizer inputs on an unimproved natural pasture is limited in tropical grasslands. A study was conducted to evaluate the response of degraded natural pasturelands in terms of species composition, forage yield, and quality to the application of different types of fertilizer. The study was conducted in two districts in the central Rift Valley of Ethiopia with contrasting agroecologies. The treatments were control (no application of fertilizer), commercial fertilizer (50 kg urea ha^–1 and 100 kg diammonium phosphate [DAP] ha^–1), cattle manure (7.5 t ha^–1), wood ash (3 t ha^–1), and lime (7.5 t ha^–1). Soil physical properties were not altered following application of the treatments, but chemical properties, including soil pH (P < .01), electroconductivity (EC) (P < .001), total nitrogen (TN), and P (P < .001) were affected. Soil TN increased from 0.11 to 0.32% following the application of cattle manure. The pH increased from 5.9 to 7.3 with wood ash application. Herbage dry matter (DM) yield increased (P < .001) from 1.88 to 6.65 t ha^–1 with chemical fertilizer. The herbage crude protein content increased (P < .01) from 96 to 157 g kg^–1 with manure application. On the other hand, the neutral detergent fiber tended to decrease (P < .05) following manure application. Partial cost‐benefit analysis indicated a positive economic gain from the direct sale of pasture hay for all treatments except for lime. The results indicated that fertilizer inputs offer feasible options to improve pasture productivity and enable rural farmers to benefit from their land resources.