Abstract
Ethiopia’s highlands are the backbone for the nation’s agriculture production which is dominated by smallholder mixed farming systems. Increasing population in combination with unsustainable land management and farming practices continue enhancing pressure on the natural resources of land and water. Unpredictable climate variability further contributes increasingly to low agricultural productivity and production. In response to these challenges soil and water conservation has to be combined with sustainable agriculture practices, whereby the latter need a strong focus on strengthening adaptation among smallholding farmers. Adaptation to climate signals is very diverse and very complex to measure and there is an urgent need for a systematic classification with regard to what is called “climate-smart agriculture”. This paper presents a systematic approach of rating agriculture interventions and practices as well as soil and water conservation measures with regard to their adaptation potentials. Adaptation potential is described in a basket-of-options with six sub-parameters and separately for degraded hill sides, communal grazing land, farm land and homesteads. Results from piloting in the field revealed that single measures often show a trade-off between adaptation, mitigation or economic benefits. Therefore a combination of single measures is recommended to overcome the trade-offs and to optimize the triple win benefits. The basket-of-options provides a helpful tool also to combine measures to strengthen specifically the adaptation benefits of measures.
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Notes
- 1.
GIZ/SLM/EU/GCCA-E Project was an EU funded project under the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) of the EU, implemented in more than 35 countries across the world. Global Climate Change Alliance—Ethiopia (GCCA-E) was implemented as a tripartite project of European Union—Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources—Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (2012–2015) with the main objective of piloting and testing climate—relevant agricultural interventions.
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks to EU, GCCA project funder and MoANR at federal and regional offices and the farmers in the respective regions who participated in piloting and testing of climate relevant practices.
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Deichert, G., Gedamu, A., Nemomsa, B. (2017). Role of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) in Adapting to Climate Variability Through Agricultural Practices—Experiences from Ethiopian Highlands. In: Leal Filho, W., Belay, S., Kalangu, J., Menas, W., Munishi, P., Musiyiwa, K. (eds) Climate Change Adaptation in Africa. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49520-0_29
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