In developing countries like Ethiopia, agriculture takes the leading role in the economy and enhancing the efficiency of agriculture resource decision making remains essential to eradicate extreme poverty through promoting sustainable agricultural production. Recent economic growth efforts in agriculture dependent economies are aggravating to further natural resource degradation, environmental pollution, and climate change. One of the main challenges is the use of inefficient conventional land use decision-making. Conventional land use decision making refers to the practice of traditional land use decision-making, which is inefficient to capture spatial and temporal land use decision dynamics and trade-offs. This paper reviewed existing literatures on decision-making models in agriculture targeting to document the potential of mathematical model-based decision making to enhance the sustainable performance of agriculture in developing countries compared to the existing conventional agricultural practice decision approach. From over 400 literatures collected from the Google Scholar search engine; 63 articles were selected for the synthesis. The literatures were screened through inclusion and exclusion criteria. Literatures that used any mathematical model as a decision support tool in agriculture and related sectors, included a clear description of the model type, aim of the study, the key attribute characterizing the application of the model, decision support system, and output were included in the review. The synthesis result uncovered that with varying degrees of impact, flexibility, and complexity, mathematical model-based land use decision making has greater potential to enhance sustainable performance of agriculture and resource use efficiency in developing countries.

Smallholder farmer crop production is a mainstay of the Ethiopian economy. A series of agricultural extension programs have been implemented since the 1950s in an effort to improve smallholder productivity. In this study, we argue that the limited attention that is given to cropland allocation by smallholders is one key driver of low performance of crop production as well as a key factor in environmental degradation. Drawing on data from a household survey of 75 randomly selected households in Abaro Kebele, Ethiopia, combined with focus-group discussions, key informant interviews, and secondary data sources, we use linear programming to highlight the impact of cropland allocation decisions on the performance of rural smallholder crop production systems. We find that under current land use practices households are not able to meet their consumption needs. The average profitability of farms under the current cropland allocation is also significantly below the estimated level of profit that could be realized by reallocating cropland while using linear programming. Additionally, survey results suggest that low crop production performance (in terms of meeting both household food crop production needs and profit goals) is the primary reason why households do not participate in conservation efforts and sustainable resource management practices. This study suggests that linear programming-based cropland allocation modeling might be applied to enhance the profit performance of smallholder crop production, help meet household food crop production requirements, and thereby promote the sustainable utilization of environmental resources.

There has to date been limited research on the economic valuation of local outdoor recreational services to inform policy and practice. This study attempts to fill this gap by estimating the annual recreational value of Tabor Mountain Recreational Park, an open-access recreational site in Hawassa City (also known as Awassa City), Ethiopia. This study employs single-bounded dichotomous choice and open-ended elicitation methods using primary and secondary data collected from 260 urban residents during June–August 2019. A complementary assessment of the determinants of local visitors’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) is also carried out. Descriptive statistics and a binary logistic regression model were used to analyze the survey data. Overall, 87% and 98% of the respondents were willing to accept the initial bid value and to give non-zero maximum WTP, respectively. On average, a local resident makes/intends to make 2.57 visits per month paying a mean entrance fee of ETB 28.33 per visit, which represents approximately ETB 93,498,000 per year. Furthermore, average monthly income and the afternoon visiting-time preference of local visitors had a positive effect on individuals’ WTP. Initial bid value, frequency of visits per month, number of dependent families, and age of local visitors had a negative effect on WTP. The substantial annual local recreational value estimate of Tabor Mountain Park reveals the potential of local financing alternatives for sustainable development and management of environmental resources in similar settings.

Understanding households’ land use decisions is an input to policymakers, and rural land users to raise food security in the face of rapidly increasing world populations. It is also crucial to promote the efficiency households’ land use. This study investigates the profitability and factors influencing rural households’ land use decisions. For this study multistage sampling procedure was employed to choose the study area and 185 sample households were randomly selected. The obtained data were analyzed using financial analysis and a multivariate probit econometric model.The results publicized that the economic profitability of Eucalyptus woodlot land was highly greater than that of other land uses as indicated by the three performance indicators. The multivariate probit eonometric model results indicate that the age of the household head, household size, on-farm income, land tenure security, land size, access to extension services, land ownership, access to the market, and the number of tropical livestock units statistically and significantly affect rural household land use decisions. Therefore, attention should be given to the design of policies and strategies for encouraging Eucalyptus woodlot-based land use which is more economically feasible than other land uses without undermining the food security status of rural households. Clinical trial number: Clinical trial number is not applicable.

Crop production is a major livelihood activity of smallholders in Ethiopia. However, it is often characterized by low performance. In an effort to improve crop production, a series of agricultural extension programs have been running in Ethiopia since the 1950s. Nevertheless, the performance of agriculture is still low. In this study, it is argued that the limited attention given to cropland allocation methodologies is one of the major causes of low performance of crop production and increased environmental degradation. This study used linear programming to examine the role and impacts of cropland allocation methods on performance of crop production. The data for this study was drawn from household survey of 75 randomly selected households combined with focus-grouped discussion, key informant interview, and secondary data. In the current conventional cropland allocation, households were not able to meet their household consumption. The average profitability of farms under current practice was found significantly below than estimated optimal level of profit that could be realized using linear programming. In addition, it uncovered that low performance of crop production (in terms of meeting household consumption demand and profitability) is the primary cause that limited the effort of households to participate in environmental and natural resource management. This study suggests the use of linear programming-based cropland allocation to enhance the profit performance of smallholder crop production, meeting household consumption requirement, and thereby promote sustainable utilization of natural and environmental resources.