Role of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) in Adapting to Climate Variability Through Agricultural Practices—Experiences from Ethiopian Highlands

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.