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In the past decade, to improve crop production and productivity, Ethiopia has embarked on an ambitious irrigation farming expansion program and has introduced new large- and small-scale irrigation initiatives. However, in Ethiopia, poverty remains a challenge, and crop productivity per unit area of land is very low. Literature on the technical efficiency (TE) of large-scale and small-scale irrigation user farmers as compared to the non-user farmers in Ethiopia is also limited. Investigating smallholder farmers’ technical efficiency (TE) level and its principal determinants is very important to increase crop production and productivity and to improve smallholder farmers’ livelihood and food security. Using 1026 household-level cross-section data, this study adopts a technology flexible stochastic frontier approach to examine agricultural TE of large-scale irrigation users, small-scale irrigation users and non-user farmers in Ethiopia. The results indicate that, due to poor extension services and old-style agronomic practices, the mean TE of farmers is very low (44.33%), implying that there is a wider room for increasing crop production in the study areas through increasing the TE of smallholder farmers without additional investment in novel agricultural technologies. Results also show that large-scale irrigation user farmers (21.05%) are less technically efficient than small-scale irrigation user farmers (60.29%). However, improving irrigation infrastructure shifts the frontier up and has a positive impact on smallholder farmers’ output.

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In Ethiopia, urban expansion happens at high rates and results in land expropriations often at the cost of agriculture and forests. The process of urban expansion does not include assessment of ecosystem services (ES). This has been causing unintended environmental problems. This study aims to uncover ES of three most important land use types (cropland, agroforestry, and grassland) that are threatened by land expropriation for urban expansion in Bahir Dar City. The study applied a participatory approach using community perception and expert judgments (N = 108). Respondents were asked to locate their perceptions on the use of 35 different ES, and then to evaluate the potential of the land use. Respondents were shown to have the ability to differentiate between ES and land use in terms of their potential to deliver ES. The results show that agroforestry is expected to have a high relevant potential to deliver 31% of all ES, but cropland 20% and grassland 14%. Food, fodder, timber, firewood, fresh water, energy, compost, climate regulation, erosion prevention, and water purification and treatment were identified as the ten most important services. It is not only the provisioning services that are being supplied by the land use types which are expropriated for urbanization, but also regulating, supporting and cultural services. To ensure sustainable urban land development, we suggest the consideration of the use of ES and the potential of the land use to supply ES when making land use decisions, including land expropriation for urban expansion.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to efforts to measuring and assessing resilience properties of household livelihoods constructed in the risky environments. It provides new insights for assessing vulnerability of household livelihoods and designing resilience building programs in areas of protracted food crisis. Based on resilience theory as applied to social-ecological systems with an application of Modern Portfolio Theory, we adapted and measure the four properties of resilience to livelihood systems and tested the expected relationships between system properties as predicted by resilience theory. Household livelihood systems exhibited the expected pattern of increasing connectivity with increasing wealth (food income). Similarly, household resilience to food insecurity increases with increasing diversity of livelihood options and diversity declines with increasing connectivity of the system. This study confirms the key role of livelihood diversification for improving household resilience to food insecurity at both higher and lower wealth groups of households.

Background Nitrogen fixation by legumes like faba bean is a cheap way of fixing atmospheric nitrogen to plant available form. However, the inoculation of grain legumes with rhizobium bacteria are poorly researched in Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Methods Thus, a study to examine the effects of rhizobium leguminosarum (var vicae) strains on nodulation, growth, and yield of faba bean was conducted in Wereillu district of Amhara Region, Ethiopia during the rainy season of 2018. The treatments comprised of four levels of faba bean Rhizobium strains (un-inoculated, EAL-1018, EAL-1035 and EAL-17) arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The collected data on yield and yield-related parameters were analyzed using Statistical Analysis System (Statistical Analysis System, version 9.1, SAS Institute Inc, Cary, 2003), version 9.1 and subjected to Duncan’s Multiple Range Test for mean separation when the analysis of variance was significant. Results The result revealed that the effect of EAL-1018 brought significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher difference on nodule number, nodulation volume, nodule dry weight, biomass yield and grain yield compared to the control. Faba bean strain, EAL-1018 gave 45.6, 27 and 11.6% grain yield advantage over the control, EAL1017 and EAL 1035 respectively. Conclusion Biologically as well as Economically EAL 1018 brought the maximum yield and net benefit (47020.7) compared to the other treatments. Hence, EAL-1018 is recommended for the study area and similar agro—ecologies.

Tropical highland environments present substantial challenges for climate projections due to sparse observations, significant local heterogeneity and inconsistent performance of global climate models (GCMs). Moreover, these areas are often densely populated, with agriculture‐based livelihoods sensitive to transient climate extremes not always included in available climate projections. In this context, we present an analysis of observed and projected trends in temperature and precipitation extremes across agroecosystems (AESs) in the northwest Ethiopian Highlands, to provide more relevant information for adaptation. Limited observational networks are supplemented with a satellite‐station hybrid product, and trends are calculated locally and summarized at the adaptation‐relevant unit of the AES. Projections are then presented from GCM realizations with divergent climate projections, and results are interpreted in the context of agricultural climate sensitivities. Trends in temperature extremes (1981–2016) are typically consistent across sites and AES, but with different implications for agricultural activities in the other AES. Trends in temperature extremes from GCM projected data also generally have the same sign as the observed trends. For precipitation extremes, there is greater site‐to‐site variability. Summarized by AES, however, there is a clear tendency towards reduced precipitation, associated with decreases in wet extremes and a tendency towards temporally clustered wet and dry days. Over the retrospective analysis period, neither of the two analysed GCMs captures these trends. Future projections from both GCMs include significant wetting and an increase in precipitation extremes across AES. However, given the lack of agreement between GCMs and observations with respect to trends in recent decades, the reliability of these projections is questionable. The present study is consistent with the “East Africa Paradox” that observations show drying in summer season rainfall while GCMs project wetting. This has an expression in summertime Ethiopian rain that has not received significant attention in previous studies.