Agriculture is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, and the agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farming systems. The farming systems are facing constraints such as small land size, lack of resources, and increasing degradation of soil quality that hamper sustainable crop production and food security. The effects of climate change (e.g., frequent occurrence of extreme weather events) exacerbate these problems. Applying appropriate technologies like climate-smart agriculture (CSA) can help to resolve the constraints of smallholder farming systems. This paper provides a comprehensive overview regarding opportunities and challenges of traditional and newly developed CSA practices in Ethiopia, such as integrated soil fertility management, water harvesting, and agroforestry. These practices are commonly related to drought resilience, stability of crop yields, carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas mitigation, and higher household income. However, the adoption of the practices by smallholder farmers is often limited, mainly due to shortage of cropland, land tenure issues, lack of adequate knowledge about CSA, slow return on investments, and insufficient policy and implementation schemes. It is suggested that additional measures be developed and made available to help CSA practices become more prevalent in smallholder farming systems. The measures should include the utilization of degraded and marginal lands, improvement of the soil organic matter management, provision of capacity-building opportunities and financial support, as well as the development of specific policies for smallholder farming.
Combined application of organic and mineral fertilizers has been proposed as a measure for sustainable yield intensification and mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, fertilizer effects strongly depend on the soil type and still no precise information is available for Nitisols in Ethiopia. The study evaluated effects of different ratios of biowaste compost and mineral fertilizers (consisting of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and sulphur (S)) on maize (Zea mays L. Bako-hybrid) yields in a two-year field trial. Soil samples from each treatment of the field trial were used to estimate emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and microbial activity in a 28-day incubation experiment with two moisture levels (40% and 75% water-filled pore space, WFPS). The application of fertilizers corresponded to a N supply of about 100 kg ha−1, whereby the pure application of mineral fertilizers (100 min) was gradually replaced by compost. Maize yields were increased by 12 to 18% (p < 0.05) in the combined treatments of compost and mineral fertilizers compared to the 100 min treatment. The cumulative emissions of N2O and CO2 but not CH4 were affected by the fertilizer treatments and soil moisture levels (p < 0.05). At 75% WFPS, the N2O emissions in the 100 min treatment was with 16.3 g ha−1 more than twice as high as the treatment with 100% compost (6.4 g ha−1) and also considerably higher than in the 50% compost treatment (9.4 g ha−1). The results suggest that a compost application accounting for 40 to 70% of the N supply in the fertilizer combinations can be suitable to increase maize yields as well as to mitigate GHG emissions from Nitisols in Southwestern Ethiopia.
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