Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051

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Land Use Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

The effects of trainings in soil and water conservation on farming practices, T

livelihoods, and land-use intensity in the Ethiopian highlands
⁎
Nathan S. Chestermana,b, ,1, Julia Entwistlea, Matthew C. Chambersa, Hsiao-Chin Liua,
Arun Agrawala, Daniel G. Brownc
a
School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
b
Environmental Incentives, Washington, D.C., United States
c
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Smallholder farmers in the Ethiopian Highlands face increasingly difficult farming conditions. Agricultural in-
Soil conservation tensification to feed the growing rural population, livestock pressure on native vegetation, and climate change
Smallholder agriculture converge to exacerbate soil erosion, creating a significant threat to crop productivity and rural livelihoods.
Farmer training Farmer trainings can be a potent strategy to increase farmer awareness of the larger causes of soil loss, help
Land-use change
farmers adapt to or mitigate environmental challenges, and improve crop outputs and incomes. However,
Land-use land-cover classification
evaluations of farmer training programs rarely assess socioeconomic and environmental outcomes simulta-
Ethiopia
neously. Our study uses multiple methods to estimate the socio-ecological effects of a soil and water conservation
training program for farmers implemented by ADHENO Integrated Rural Development Association, an Ethiopian
non-governmental organization. We asked: (a) did farmers use practices taught in trainings; (b) did these
strategies lead to improved agricultural productivity or livelihoods; and (c) how did land-use intensity change in
areas with more participation in farmer trainings? To address questions (a) and (b), our study and results are
based on 449 household surveys, collected between June and August 2017, in two rural kebeles in Ethiopia in
which ADHENO has been active since 2003. We used remote sensing analysis of high resolution satellite images
to measure land-use change over a period of nine years, addressing question (c) for one of the kebeles. Analysis
of household surveys with propensity score matching and robustness checks suggests that participation in farmer
trainings predicts the implementation of four out of seven soil conservation farming methods. Participants in
training sessions also had higher average incomes from agriculture than non-participants. Linear models of land-
use change in the area around villages did not depict a clear relationship between participation in farmer
trainings and change in land-use intensity. These results indicate that farmer trainings focusing on soil and water
conservation have the potential to influence farming practices and livelihoods and have implications for soil
conservation efforts in the Ethiopian Highlands. This study highlights the importance of evaluating the impacts
of small, localized development interventions, of which there are many in sub-Saharan Africa, to better un-
derstand the ways in which myriad types of programs influence both land use and livelihoods.

1. Introduction intensification, and deforestation (Anley et al., 2007; Haregeweyn

Approximately 80% of Ethiopian households practice smallholder
agriculture (World Bank Group, 2015). This proportion has remained
stable since 2000, even as the national poverty rate fell from 45% to
30% over the same time period (World Bank Group, 2015). None-
theless, across Ethiopia, the soil and water resources that smallholder
farmers depend on are at significant risk of degradation due to several
factors, including climate change, population growth, agricultural
et al., 2015; Holden and Shiferaw, 2004; Shiferaw and Holden, 1999).
The relationship between these factors is complex and multi-
directional. Population growth, persistent rural poverty, and decreasing
soil productivity may all contribute to farmers’ decisions to intensify
agricultural production, which further exacerbates underlying resource
degradation issues (Delelegn et al., 2017; Lambin et al., 2001). Ad-
ditionally, climate change has further exacerbated the situation, as in-
creasingly unpredictable weather patterns negatively affect farm

⁎
Corresponding author at: University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, 440 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, United States.
E-mail address: nchest@umich.edu (N.S. Chesterman).
1
Present Address: 725 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20010.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104051
Received 21 September 2018; Received in revised form 9 June 2019; Accepted 11 June 2019
0264-8377/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
N.S. Chesterman, et al.
productivity (Deressa and Hassan, 2009; Holden and Shiferaw, 2004).
As smallholder farm productivity plateaus or decreases, farmers are
forced to choose between intensifying land-use to continue production
– placing soil health and other ecosystem services at greater risk of
degradation – or, reducing land-use intensity to preserve soil fertility
for future planting seasons, even if it might mean a smaller harvest for
the time being (Adimassu et al., 2016; Delelegn et al., 2017; Lambin
et al., 2001; Tolessa et al., 2017).
In the rural highlands, where the rugged topography facilitates soil
erosion, and there is a high population density and a millennia-long
history of agropastoralism (Anley et al., 2007; Baye, 2017; Darbyshire
et al., 2003; Nyssen et al., 2004), these issues converge to create food
shortages and the potential for poverty trap dynamics, stoking a sense
of urgency in the Ethiopian government and among the global aid
community to address soil erosion and improve smallholder farm pro-
ductivity (Sachs et al., 2004; Shiferaw and Holden, 1998; Tekle, 1999).
Though farmers have been practicing traditional soil and water
conservation techniques for hundreds of years (Osman and Sauerborn,
2001), these methods were used sporadically until the Ethiopian gov-
ernment institutionalized soil and water conservation programs in the
1970s to address resource degradation on a national scale (Haregeweyn
et al., 2015). The most common conservation techniques include dig-
ging trenches to capture runoff, establishing exclosures to rehabilitate
vegetation, and constructing dams across gullies (Haregeweyn et al.,
2015). The government implements these strategies by coordinating
with aid partners to engage farmers in watershed-level public works
projects, and has carried out such projects across the highlands in at-
tempts to transfer capacity to rural farmers and encourage the use of
these methods (Haregeweyn et al., 2015). Despite these broad efforts,
the policy has been sporadically successful; the likelihood of farmer
adoption remains highly influenced by geography, socioeconomic and
environmental conditions, and perceptions of the risks posed by soil
erosion and climate change (Anley et al., 2007; Kato et al., 2011;
Shiferaw and Holden, 1998). Thus, careful selection of geography for
intervention, as well as more locally based needs assessments and
community engagement approaches may lead to greater rates of use of
such practices (Kato et al., 2011; Nigussie et al., 2017).
Farmer training programs and field schools are increasingly re-
cognized for their efficacy in achieving smallholder agricultural im-
provements in areas such as soil and water conservation (Anley et al.,
2007; Owenya et al., 2011), integrated pest management (Clausen
et al., 2017; Jørs et al., 2016; Settle et al., 2014), and nutrient appli-
cation (Pan et al., 2017). These programs have been evaluated along
many metrics, including adoption of farming techniques, changes in
livelihoods, and impacts on soil health and ecosystem services (Chindi
et al., 2017; Davis et al., 2012; Feder et al., 2003; Takahashi and Todo,
2012). Yet, despite the intertwined nature of the environmental and
socioeconomic challenges facing farmers in the Ethiopian highlands,
assessments that interrogate the impacts of farmer trainings and field
schools in both dimensions are rare. If a program is successful in fos-
tering implementation of conservation farming practices, will it also
improve social wellbeing and promote sustainable intensification on
less agricultural land, enabling the rehabilitation of ecosystem services
across partially revegetated landscapes (Adimassu et al., 2016; Perfecto
and Vandermeer, 2008; Pretty and Bharucha, 2014)? To assess poten-
tial for scalability and determine whether these programs can effec-
tively advance development goals, it is important to build a holistic
understanding of their impacts.
Here, we evaluate the socioeconomic and land-use impacts of
farmer trainings focusing on soil and water conservation practices
conducted by a non-governmental organization (NGO). The NGO,
ADHENO Integrated Rural Development Association (hereafter
ADHENO), has operated in several rural kebeles in the North Shewa
Zone, which lies in the central highlands of Ethiopia, since 2003
(Fig. 1). Kebeles represent the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia,
though it should be noted that large kebeles may also be split into sub-
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Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051
kebeles. ADHENO’s mission is “improving the living conditions of the
rural people of North Shewa by working with communities and closely
collaborating with the government…through participatory designing,
implementation, and evaluation of projects and programs of environ-
mental rehabilitation” (ADHENO, 2015, p. 10). In fulfillment of its
mission, ADHENO works with government extension agents to engage
rural farmers in trainings on techniques intended to improve soil sta-
bility, climate change adaptation, and agricultural livelihoods. The
practices covered by these trainings include digging trenches, terracing,
planting vegetation to stabilize soil, use of improved seeds, intercrop-
ping, fertilizer application, and irrigation (ADHENO, 2015). It should
be noted that these training topics comprise soil conservation techni-
ques that are traditionally practiced in the Ethiopian highlands, or
newer approaches commonly covered by agricultural interventions
(Haregeweyn et al., 2015; Kato et al., 2011). Trainings are held in
centrally-located villages throughout two kebeles, with up to 40
farmers invited to each training from the surrounding villages. Train-
ings last for up to five days and cover one or two of the aforementioned
practices. Invitations are extended to farmers that ADHENO field staff
assess are likely to utilize the methods based on the suitability of their
farm plots for implementing the practices covered in trainings. Some
trainings include incentives for participation – notably, farmers are
provided improved seeds during trainings on that topic to facilitate
uptake. Additionally, during some trainings on farming practices that
involve landscape modification, such as terracing and digging trenches,
farmers are given short-term access to hand tools. While these in-
centives may play a role in mediating uptake of methods by farmers,
ADHENO does not directly facilitate market access or provide direct
monetary compensation for participation in trainings. We engage with
the implications of these incentives in the discussion below. In a se-
parate program, ADHENO facilitates the establishment of exclosures on
communally managed lands and leads annual work days to plant
seedlings in exclosures.
We sought to understand the impact of ADHENO’s farmer training
program in addressing the economic and environmental challenges to
rural development in the two kebeles in which ADHENO has operated
the longest (Fig. 1). Specifically, we evaluated the degree to which
ADHENO’s approach is effective at engendering the use of conservation
farming, addressing poverty, and mitigating land-use intensification. To
do so, we utilized a mixed methods approach, combining an econo-
metric household survey for propensity score matching with remote
sensing analysis of fine spatial resolution satellite imagery. We asked:
(a) did farmers use practices taught in trainings; (b) did these strategies
lead to improved agricultural productivity or livelihoods; and (c) how
did land-use intensity change in areas with more participation in farmer
trainings?
2. Methods
2.1. Description of the study area
This study was undertaken in Goshebado and Metkoriya kebeles,
located in the North Shewa Zone of the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. We
selected these kebeles because ADHENO has implemented farmer
trainings for over ten years in these areas, making them the longest-
standing project areas among ADHENO’s portfolio. The two kebeles are
populated by 1159 and 540 households, respectively. The primary
source of income for nearly all households is agriculture, livestock
rearing, or a combination of the two. Most farmers grow a mix of cereal
and pulse crops, supplemented by some vegetable cultivation.
Topographically, Goshebado and Metkoriya are characterized by a
large central plateau flanked by steep escarpments leading down into
river valleys. Agriculture is mostly carried out on the central plateaus,
though some areas of the escarpment are also dedicated to farming.
Villages and homesteads are sparsely distributed across each kebele.
The elevation in the kebeles ranges between 2000 m to 2800 m. Total
N.S. Chesterman, et al.
Fig. 1. Map of Goshebado and Metkoriya kebeles, within the North Shewa Zone in Ethiopia.
annual rainfall is approximately 1147 mm per year (Harris et al., 2014),
distributed between two rainy seasons; the short rains fall between
February and April, and the long rains fall between June and Sep-
tember. Farmers plow and sow their plots at the onset of the rainy
seasons, and harvest at different times throughout the dry season
months, between September and November, depending on the crop.
The soil is primarily comprised of clayey vertisols (Hengl et al., 2017).
Goshebado and Metkoriya are connected to a nearby city, Debre
Berhan, by one unpaved road that runs across the central plateau
connecting the two kebeles.
2.2. Evaluation challenges
A key challenge to evaluating a farmer training program such as
ADHENO’s, in which the program was initially designed and im-
plemented without an evaluation plan in place, is the potential for se-
lection bias. Where NGO staff make subjective decisions on villages for
hosting trainings and farmers to invite to trainings, there is a possibility
that these decisions are informed by socioeconomic and geographic
factors that can also predict the outcomes we hope to link with farmer
trainings in this evaluation. These factors include distance to market,
gender and age of household head, level of education, household size,
land holdings, and – given the highly variable terrain – elevation and
slope. Following the model of Haile et al. (2017), we addressed the
possibility of selection bias by conducting pairwise comparisons to
determine whether there are indeed differences along these variables
between program participants and non-participants.
We first compared village-level means for the above variables be-
tween ADHENO-targeted villages and non-targeted villages, using our
household survey described in detail below. After correcting p-values
for multiple comparisons using Bonferroni error correction (Haile et al.,
2017), we found there were no differences between targeted and non-
targeted villages in terms of average level of education, distance to the
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Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051
market town, distance to the farthest farm plots, elevation, slope, land
holdings, household size, and prevalence of female heads of house-
holds. We conducted the same pairwise analysis to compare for parti-
cipating and non-participating households, since many farmers parti-
cipate in ADHENO trainings despite living in villages where no
trainings were hosted. In this comparison, we found that the only sig-
nificant difference between groups was that participating households
have slightly more household members than non-participating house-
holds.
These preliminary results suggest that ADHENO staff have not sig-
nificantly biased their selection of villages or households to participate
in trainings. Nonetheless, because of large within-group variation for
participants and non-participants along demographic and geographic
variables, we used a propensity score matching (PSM) approach for the
impact evaluation in order to assess differences between similar in-
dividual households in both groups. We also used robustness tests to
assess the sensitivity of our findings to unobserved variables that may
have biased ADHENO staff selection of villages and participants. This
approach is described in more detail below.
2.3. Household survey collection & analysis
2.3.1. Survey design
To test the degree to which ADHENO activities have affected live-
lihoods, we administered a quantitative and adaptive household survey
to collect information on demographics, farming strategies, crop yields,
land holdings, income, education, and health. Surveys were collected
by a team of five Ethiopian enumerators who were native speakers of
Amharic, the primary language of all Goshebado and Metkoriya re-
sidents. Surveys were collected using Qualtrics Survey Software on
Android smartphones. The enumerators had no previous connection to
ADHENO, and no incentive was offered to survey participants.
We used an adaptive survey tool that was structured to prompt
N.S. Chesterman, et al.
follow-up questions depending on the activities in which respondents
had participated, and farming methods respondents used. Surveys
consisted of between 25 and 127 questions and lasted between 15 and
60 min, depending on the level of participation in ADHENO programs
and the variety and extent of the respondents’ farming activities. Survey
respondents that had participated in ADHENO trainings were redirected
to answer additional questions about their perceptions and experiences
with those programs. The survey tool was initially designed in English
and was translated into Amharic by an English professor at Debre
Berhan University. The translation was then verified by another native
Amharic speaker who is fluent in English. Prior to implementation, we
field tested the survey with farmers and made minor revisions to the
survey tool to improve ease of use for enumerators and address com-
munity-specific issues with the survey questions. The survey tool was
granted exempt status by the Institutional Review Board at the
University of Michigan.
2.3.2. Survey study population and sampling method
The survey was administered between June and August 2017.
Overall, we collected surveys from 449 of the 1700 households in
Metkoriya and Goshebado. At that time, all survey respondents were
living in the Goshebado or Metkoriya kebeles. To ensure adequate re-
presentation of households, we grouped all villages in both kebeles into
those that had and had not been targeted for farmer trainings. Then, we
randomly selected villages from each category for random sampling of
households within these villages. Households recruited in this way ac-
counted for 265 out of 449 survey respondents. The majority of re-
spondents were surveyed in the central market town of the kebele, at
community events such as religious festivities, or in the central village
of sub-kebeles. Respondents were recruited in one of the following
ways: a) sub-kebele leaders gathered heads of households to meet at a
central location in their village or the kebele market town, b) enu-
merators visited households in villages selected for random sampling,
and c) respondents were recruited by the enumerators while walking on
the only road through the kebeles. We also included a convenience
sample to recruit an additional 184 respondents from the two kebeles to
participate in our survey. These additional respondents were recruited
using the same methods as above, but were from villages that were not
selected in the random sample. No specific households were targeted or
rejected for participation in the survey.
2.3.3. Variable management and analysis
Because we were primarily interested in understanding how parti-
cipation in farmer trainings affected implementation of soil and water
conservation techniques and household income, we conducted a pro-
pensity score matching (PSM) analysis of household surveys. PSM is a
quasi-experimental statistical method used to estimate the effect of a
treatment by matching individuals in the treatment group with similar
individuals in the control group, approximating a counterfactual con-
trol group (Li, 2012a; Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983). Here, we con-
structed a binary variable for participation in any number of trainings
and participation in no trainings, and considered the former group as
the “treatment” and the latter as the “control.”
Due to varying availability of geographic information between the
two kebeles, we conducted the PSM analysis in two panels. We were
able to record village locations for calculating geographic variables for
households in Goshebado, but were unable to do so for Metkoriya.
Additionally, we recorded sub-kebeles for survey respondents from
Goshebado, but were unable to ascertain sub-kebeles for respondents
from Metkoriya. Thus, we constructed the Panel 1 PSM analysis with
survey data from both kebeles (n = 449), while Panel 2 represented a
more robust PSM analysis with surveys from Goshebado only
(n = 339). In Panel 1, we used the following variables to match treat-
ment and control groups: land holdings, age and gender of the head of
household, household size, distance to the farthest plot, the terrain of
plots, level of education, and kebele of residence. In Panel 2, we used
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Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051
the same variables as Panel 1, and added the following: village-level
means for slope, elevation, and distance to the market town; and sub-
kebele of residence.
For both panels, we constructed a probit regression model to predict
the likelihood that each individual falls in the treatment group based on
the aforementioned variables, and matched individuals with similar
scores in both groups for the PSM analyses. The primary output statistic
from our PSM models is the average treatment effect on the treated
(ATT score), which represents the average effect on those who received
the treatment (Li, 2012b). We also conducted Rosenbaum’s bounds tests
for sensitivity to hidden bias for each PSM model to account for any
variables omitted from the matching analysis that may have mediated
participation in farmer trainings.
We first asked: do farmers that participate in trainings use the
practices taught? We created a dummy variable for use of each farming
method taught by ADHENO (digging trenches, terracing, planting ve-
getation to stabilize soil, use of improved seeds, intercropping, fertilizer
application, and irrigation), and tested the difference in rate of use
between treatment and control groups. We also constructed non-PSM
logistic regressions to test whether likelihood of using each conserva-
tion farming method is influenced by attendance at multiple trainings,
controlling for the variables used in the PSM analysis. We then asked: is
participation in farmer trainings associated with improvements in crop
productivity? For this, we calculated yield per hectare for each crop
using self-reported metrics for crop productivity and area dedicated to
each crop, and compared yield differences between the treatment and
control groups. Lastly, to determine whether participation in farmer
trainings is associated with improved agricultural livelihoods, we
compared income from farming between treatment and control groups,
using self-reported income from farming. Stata 15.0 was used for PSM
analysis and RStudio 1.1.442 was used for non-PSM logistic regressions.
2.4. Land-use intensity
To determine whether village-level participation in ADHENO
farmer trainings was associated with land-use intensification over time,
we used fine spatial resolution (< 2 m pixels) satellite images to classify
land-use/land-cover (LULC) over time and modeled changes in land-use
intensity within village areas. This analysis was limited to Goshebado
for multiple reasons. First, we collected more surveys in Goshebado, so
we were better able to test associations between farmer training par-
ticipation and land-cover change in that area. Second, we relied on
ADHENO field staff and community members to identify village loca-
tions on Google Earth, and these informants were only able to con-
fidently identify Goshebado villages.
Due to extreme patchiness of the landscape, characterized by
smallholder farm plots interspersed with eucalyptus woodlots and
patches of pasture and shrubland on escarpments, we used an object-
based approach for this analysis. Multispectral images were available
from December 2007 and November 2016, providing a nine-year
window over which to assess change in land-use intensity. November
and December fall during a dry season harvest period, creating sig-
nificant heterogeneity in the appearance of agriculture and vegetation
across the landscape. Both images provided 100 percent coverage of
Goshebado, a 72 km2 area, and had 0 percent cloud cover. All image
analysis was carried out in ERDAS Imagine and ArcGIS Desktop 10.5.
2.4.1. Image preprocessing
The 2007 image was captured by the Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite
(KOMPSAT-2) system, which contains blue, green, red, and near-in-
frared bands at 4 m resolution, as well as a 1 m panchromatic band. The
2016 image was captured by WorldView-2, and comprised of four
multispectral bands at 1.3 m resolution and a 0.5 m panchromatic band.
We orthorectified both images using a 30 m SRTM digital elevation
model (DEM) and pan-sharpened the 2007 multispectral image to a
resolution of 1 m, then resampled the result to 1.3 m pixels to
N.S. Chesterman, et al. Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051

Table 1
Land-use intensity and associated land-cover classifications and descriptions, adapted from land-cover/land-use classification systems in Delelegn et al. (2017) and
Eggen et al. (2016).
Land-use intensity level Land-cover class name Description

1. Low intensity Woodland Land not used for agriculture, with vegetation cover between 20-100%
Water All sources of open water – primarily found in rivers in the valleys delineating Goshebado kebele from neighboring kebeles
2. Low-medium intensity Eucalyptus Plantation Identified by orthogonal tracts of dense vegetation, surrounded by very little vegetation or settlements
3. Medium intensity Shrubland/ grassland Land not used for agriculture, with vegetation cover between 1-20%
Bare soil Land not used for agriculture with 0% vegetation cover
4. High-medium intensity Smallholder Agriculture Patchwork of farm plots with low density of settlements
5. High intensity Rural settlement High density of settlement and impervious surface
Other No data Shadows and other areas for which land-cover was impossible to discern

standardize pixel size between the two images.
2.4.2. Image classification
We classified LULC for each image using an eight-category classi-
fication system based on a scheme developed for the Ethiopian high-
lands by Eggen et al. (2016) and refined for the Goshebado context with
on-the-ground observations (Table 1). Specifically, we added a class for
Eucalyptus woodlot due to the livelihood importance of woodlots in
this region and ecological differences between exotic eucalyptus plan-
tations and indigenous forest, and removed the wetland class due to the
lack of wetlands. Images were first processed to identify spectral sig-
natures of LULC classes at the pixel level, segmented to objects which
were characterized by shape, size, pixel reflectance, and texture, then
classified using ERDAS Objective, an object-based image analysis
package in ERDAS Imagine. We classified segments by applying an
adapted machine-learning approach previously used to extract trees
from WorldView-2 satellite imagery (Chepkochei, 2011), described in
more detail below. Prior to the extraction of classes in ERDAS Objec-
tive, we digitized the rural settlement and masked it out of the image, as
there is only one densely settled area in Goshebado.
We extracted LULC classes using an iterative model-building pro-
cess. For each target LULC class, we identified a set of training pixels
that fell within the class and another set of pixels that fell outside the
target class as background pixels for comparison. We trained a Single
Feature Probability (SFP) pixel classifier, which calculated the prob-
ability that all pixels in the images were in the target LULC class. We
then performed an unsupervised object-based segmentation using the
Full Lambda Schedule Image Segmentation to specify desired levels of
homogeneity of size, texture, shape, and pixel reflectance for output
segmentation polygons. We used a 30 m minimum mapping unit for
segmentation. Following segmentation, the SFP classifier was used to
calculate the probability that each segment fell within the target class
based on spectral information. A second set of probabilities was cal-
culated using vector geometry parameters for all polygons, including
area, perimeter, rectangularity, and eccentricity of polygon outlines,
and trained based on a set of training objects that fell within the target
class. The probability from pixel and vector-based calculations were
then combined, providing a total probability score between 0 and 1 that
each object fell within the target LULC class. We then applied a filter to
remove objects with probability scores falling below a threshold which
varied from 0.3 – 0.6 depending on the model. Prior to building a model
to extract the next class, we masked classified objects out of the image
to ensure no features were classified twice. We repeated this process to
sequentially extract all LULC classes for both images, until there were
few remaining unclassified pixel clusters. We then manually classified
all remaining unclassified polygons larger than the minimum mapping
unit and merged all LULC classes into a single file that was processed to
remove topological errors. We used this process to first classify water,
followed by shadow/no data, eucalyptus woodlot, agriculture, wood-
land, shrubland, and bare soil, and determined this order by prioritizing
the LULC classes that the algorithm was more adept at identifying
(Fig. 1).
We conducted accuracy assessments for the classified images
(Fig. 3) using a unique set of test pixels for each image that were
manually classified by a trained observer, using the original satellite
image for reference. Test pixels were selected using a random stratified
sample, with each class receiving a minimum of 30 test pixels. We
calculated producer and user accuracy for each LULC class; overall
kappa was 0.77 for the 2007 image, and 0.86 for the 2016 image.
2.4.3. Measuring change in land-use intensity
In order to measure land-use intensification over time, we first
characterized each of the LULC classes in terms of their land-use in-
tensity based on previous studies of historic land-cover and land-use
impacts on soil stability and nutrient levels (Table 1). Geological evi-
dence reveals that the Ethiopian highlands were forested before an
increase in agricultural and pastoral pressure upon the landscape be-
ginning 2000–3000 years ago (Darbyshire et al., 2003), suggesting that
woodland reflects the lowest intensity of land-use among the LULC
classes present in Goshebado. We classified Eucalyptus woodlots as low-
medium land-use intensity. Woodlots have higher levels of soil organic
carbon and soil stability relative to agricultural and pastoral land
(Delelegn et al., 2017); however, woodlots have more acidic soil com-
pared to forests, and periodic harvests of trees contribute to lower
nutrient levels compared to forests (Liang et al., 2016). Shrubland/
grassland and bare soil were designated as medium land-use intensity,
as they likely reflect areas frequently used for livestock grazing. Grazing
represents frequent low-intensity nutrient removal from soils, resulting
in intermediate soil stability and nutrient levels that are between
woodland and farmland (Delelegn et al., 2017; Yimer et al., 2007).
Agricultural lands were designated high-medium intensity, due to the
pressure on soil organic matter and soil stability caused by the farming
of annual crops (Delelegn et al., 2017). Rural settlement represents the
most intense land-use, given the propensity for urbanization to frag-
ment ecosystems and add to impervious surface (Lambin et al., 2001).
Changes in land-use intensity levels were determined by comparing
the land-use intensity of LULC classes as observed in 2007 with land-use
intensity for 2016. Changes were summarized by calculating two binary
variables for each pixel: increase in intensity (pixels having no change
and decreasing intensity = 0; pixels having increasing intensity = 1)
and decrease in intensity (no change and increasing intensity = 0; de-
creasing intensity = 1).
2.4.4. Variable management and analysis
Due to a lack of spatially explicit data for farm plots managed by
each surveyed household, we modeled change in land-use intensity at
the landscape level, with individual villages as the unit of analysis. We
aggregated land-use intensity data and household surveys to the village
level to create the variables for this analysis, and calculated several
spatial covariates. In consultation with ADHENO staff, we identified the
locations of villages in Goshebado (n = 37) using Google Earth, and
generated Thiessen polygons using village coordinates to approximate
village boundaries.
For each village, we calculated the rate of increase and decrease in

5
N.S. Chesterman, et al.
land-use intensity. From surveys, we calculated village-level rate of
participation in ADHENO farmer trainings and seedling plantation
programs, and average land holdings, income, and level of education.
We used census sheets to determine the number of households in each
village. We also used a 30 m SRTM DEM to calculate spatial covariate
rasters for slope as percent rise, path distance from the central market
town, and Euclidean distance from ADHENO exclosure sites. We used
these rasters to calculate the average for each of these covariates within
village Thiessen polygons. The result of this process was a dataset as-
sociating village-level changes in land-use intensity with demographic
and spatial variables.
We used linear models to test whether there was a significant linear
relationship between the rate of participation in farmer trainings and
the rate of increase and decrease in land-use intensity at the village
level. To avoid undersampling bias, we filtered out villages for which
we had surveyed fewer than 15% of households, leaving 28 villages for
the analysis. We controlled for number of households, average slope,
distance to the town, education, income, land holdings, and participa-
tion in the ADHENO exclosure and seedling plantation program. Linear
models were first tested with variance inflation factors to check for
collinearity among covariates, and Shapiro-Wilks tests were performed
on model residuals to test the assumption of homoscedasticity. No
covariates were found to be collinear, and assumed homoscedasticity
held. We used RStudio Version 1.1.442 to conduct the statistical ana-
lysis.
3. Results
3.1. Farmer survey
3.1.1. Descriptive results
Of the 449 households surveyed, 100% cited farming as their pri-
mary or secondary source of income. All but one household reported
their ethnicity as Amharic. The majority of survey respondents (77%)
were male. Seventy-five percent of households reported participating in
one or more ADHENO farmer training (Table 2).
3.1.2. Use of soil and water conservation farming practices
Analysis of the relationships between participation in ADHENO
farmer trainings and self-reported use of the farming practices taught in
the trainings yielded a significant effect for four out of seven methods:
terracing, intercropping, use of vegetation to stabilize soil, and tren-
ches. These results were consistent across both PSM panel analyses
(Table 3). All ATT t-stat coefficients were positive, with the exception of
irrigation for both panels and fertilizer for Panel 2. The results were not
significant for fertilizer, use of improved seeds, or irrigation. The po-
sitive significant relationship between participation in any training and
the use of terracing, intercropping, use of vegetation to stabilize soil,
and trenches indicates that attendance in any of the ADHENO farmer
Table 2
Descriptive results for key variables of interest, and demographic and geo-
graphic variables used for matching analysis.
Variable Mean Standard Median
Deviation
Farmer Trainings Attended in Previous 5 4.47 3.57 5
Years
Income from Farminga 8913.04 7745.66 8000
Land holdings in Timadsb 6.24 2.93 6
Male Head of Household Age 51 13.08 50
Female Head of Household Age 44 11.98 44
Household Size 5.14 1.99 5
a
Farmers reported their income in Ethiopian Birr; the exchange rate to US
Dollar was 23:1 at the time of this study.
b
Farmers reported land-holdings in the local unit of area measurement, the
timad. One timad is equivalent to 0.25 ha (Shiferaw et al., 2001).
6
Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051
training sessions predicts the implementation of soil conservation
farming strategies. The difference-in-means value represents the rate by
which the treatment group is more likely to use a particular method
than the control group; for example, farmers who participate in any
ADHENO training are 31–44 percent more likely to practice inter-
cropping than non-participants.
The Rosenbaum bounds test, used to determine the sensitivity of the
results to hidden bias or unconsidered factors mediating participation
in the treatment group, are represented by the Gamma value (Γ). These
values range from 2.45 for terracing in Panel 2 to 21.85 for use of
trenches in Panel 2. This can be interpreted to mean that effects of
training would have to differ from the predicted effect (as a result of
unobserved variables) by 2.45 to 21.85 times for unobserved variables
to invalidate the significance of the relationship between farmer
trainings and use of terracing or trenches, respectively. The effect is
considered significant if Γ = 1 and demonstrates increasing robustness
of the PSM test as Γ increases (Becker and Caliendo, 2007).
We also conducted non-PSM logistic regressions, controlling for the
demographic and geographic variables used for matching above, to test
whether ADHENO-trainees were more likely to implement farming
methods if they attended more trainings. We found that across both
panels, the odds of implementing trenches and intercropping was sig-
nificantly higher for farmers that attended multiple trainings, while the
number of trainings attended did not influence the rate of planting
vegetation to stabilize soil (Table 4). At a 90% confidence interval,
farmers that attended more trainings were more likely to use trenching.
3.1.3. Crop productivity
For all crops, there was no significant difference in crop productivity
between treatment and control groups in both PSM panels (Table 5).
The sample size of farmers growing oil beans was not sufficiently large
to perform a matching analysis.
3.1.4. Income from farming
Regressing the dummy variable representing attendance at any
farmer training with self-reported income from farming over the pre-
vious year showed that attendance at farmer trainings is associated with
higher income from farming in both PSM panels (Table 6). Results from
this propensity score matching analysis show that the treatment group
(i.e., those attending a training session) had on average an income that
was higher by 4995 Ethiopian Birr (ETB), or about 217 US Dollar (USD)
compared to the control group for the Panel 1 PSM analysis across
Goshebado and Metkoriya kebeles. In Goshebado alone, represented by
Panel 2, the difference between treatment and control group farming
incomes was 6265 ETB, or approximately 272 USD.
3.2. Land-use intensity
3.2.1. Descriptive results
On average, 63.38% of the land-use within delineated village areas
remained the same over time (n = 28, sd = 6.72; Figs. 2 and 3). In
contrast, across villages, land-use intensity increased in an average of
14.47% of village area (n = 28, sd = 6.98; Figs. 2 and 3), and decreased
in an average of 21.85% of village area (n = 28, sd = 7.94; Figs. 2, and
3). Meanwhile, participation in farmer training sessions was high, with
an average of 70% participation in at least one session across villages,
though there was substantial variation between villages (n = 28,
sd = 18.56; Figs. 2 and 3).
3.2.2. Predictors of land-use change at the village-level
Linear models of rates of increase and decrease in land-use intensity
indicated that participation in farmer trainings was not significantly
associated with rate of land-use change at the village level (increasing
intensity: n = 28, p = 0.89; decreasing intensity: n = 28, p = 0.14).
However, land-use change was significantly associated with other
variables in the model (increasing intensity: R2 = 0.68; decreasing
N.S. Chesterman, et al. Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051

Table 3
Results of PSM probit regression of Farmer Trainings Attended (0/1) & Use of a Method (0/1) and Rosenbaum bounds test (listed as Γ). Panel 1 included individuals
in both Metkoriya and Goshebado, and used only demographic variables for matching. Panel 2 included survey respondents from Goshebado, and used both
geographic and demographic variables to match. The ATT t-statistic denotes statistical significance of the effect, with a value of 1.95 or greater indicating 95%
confidence. Variables in bold typeface indicate a significant relationship between attending farmer trainings and use of the method.
Farming method

Fertilizer Terracing Improved Seeds Soil-stabilizing Vegetation Inter-cropping Trenches Irrigation

Panel 1
Treatment mean 0.976 0.895 0.559 0.594 0.521 0.283 0.059
Control mean 0.962 0.521 0.404 0.136 0.077 0 0.209
SE 0.064 0.145 0.132 0.115 0.082 0.027 0.138
ATT t-stat 0.22 2.58*** 1.19 3.95*** 5.38*** 10.61*** −1.09
Gamma <1 3.8 1.15 3.75 3.35 6.8 <1

Panel 2
Treatment mean 0.97 0.885 0.555 0.59 0.465 0.295 0.065
Control mean 1 0.52 0.39 0.115 0.155 0 0.08
SE 0.012 0.163 0.165 0.131 0.091 0.032 0.137
ATT t-stat −2.48 2.24*** 1 3.63*** 3.40*** 9.13*** −0.11
Gamma <1 2.45 1.3 5.75 3.9 21.85 <1

‡
Note: 90% CI, * 95% CI, ** 99% CI, *** 99.9% CI.

Table 4 method. However, there were no differences in crop productivity be-

Non-PSM logistic regression demonstrating the influence of number of trainings tween attendees and non-attendees, and higher rate of participation in
attended on the odds of using a farming method, controlling for demographic farmer trainings was not associated with changes in land-use intensity
variables. This test was limited to farming methods found to be used sig- at the village level. We discuss the implications of these findings below.
nificantly more frequently by ADHENO training participants, and included only For four of seven training topics – terraces, planting vegetation to
farmers that had participated in at least one training. Panel 1 included survey
stabilize soil, intercropping, and digging trenches – farmers that at-
respondents from Goshebado and Metkoriya, while Panel 2 included survey
tended trainings utilized those practices at significantly higher rates
respondents only from Goshebado and controlled for geographic variables.
Variables in bold typeface indicate a significant association between number of than farmers that did not attend trainings, after matching farmers with
trainings attended and use of the farming method. similar demographic and geographic characteristics from both groups.
ADHENO-trained farmers were approximately 30% to 48% more likely
Farming method
to use these methods than non-participating farmers. These results were
Terracing Soil-stabilizing Inter- Trenches consistent across the two PSM panels, highly robust to omitted variable
Vegetation cropping bias, and were achieved even though our treatment variable didn’t
discriminate between types of training. Furthermore, for each addi-
Panel 1
tional training attended, the odds that an ADHENO training participant
Odds ratio 1.368*** 1.017 1.111*** 1.095‡
Observations 335 335 335 335 built terraces increased by 37%, and the odds of using intercropping
df 313, 322 313, 322 226, 238 226, 238 increased by 11%.
AIC 236.38 427.60 328.35 287.88 Nearly all farmers used fertilizer, very few used irrigation, and there
Panel 2 was a non-significant 15% difference between groups in rate of use of
Odds ratio 1.283** 1.049 1.111* 1.094‡ improved seeds. For fertilizer and irrigation, our findings reflect the fact
Observations 251 251 251 251 that agricultural extension agents provide access to inorganic fertilizers
df 226, 238 226, 238 226, 238 226, 238
at the weekly market, and that irrigation requires specific topographical
AIC 211.40 330.15 328.35 287.88
farm conditions and investment into expensive equipment. Our finding
‡ that participants and non-participants used improved seeds at similar
Note: 90% CI, * 95% CI, ** 99% CI, *** 99.9% CI.
rates is unexpected, since ADHENO provides access to improved seeds
intensity: R2 = 0.55; Table 7). Increasing land-use intensity was posi- and farm tools at farmer trainings, yet participating farmers are more
tively associated with slope, such that each percent increase in slope likely to use methods that require landscape modification, such as
predicted a 0.46 percent increase in the rate of land-use intensity (p = terracing and trenches. Limited access to resources can constrain
0.001). Decreasing land-use intensity was positively associated with adoption of certain costly farming practices (Adimassu et al., 2016),
average land holdings and distance from ADHENO-facilitated ex- thus one might expect provisioning improved seeds and farm tools to
closures, such that each additional hectare predicted an additional 2.74 facilitate uptake of all related methods. We may draw two potential
percent decrease in land-use intensity (p = 0.049), and each kilometer insights from this result: a) agricultural extension agents carry out se-
of distance from exclosures predicted an additional 2 percent of de- parate programs to distribute improved seeds, but not farm tools; or b)
crease in land-use intensity (p = 0.03). Shapiro-Wilks tests indicated planting improved seeds requires lower investments of time, labor, and
that the assumption of homoscedasticity held (increasing intensity: p = land compared to landscape modifications such as trenches and ter-
0.52; decreasing intensity: p = 0.08). races, making it an easy technology to adopt.
Interestingly, while the methods used at similar rates between
treatment and control groups can improve crop yield and resilience, the
4. Discussion
practices used more frequently by ADHENO-trained farmers are more
oriented to soil conservation (Haregeweyn et al., 2015). Constructing
This study of a soil conservation farmer training program in the
terraces, digging trenches, and planting vegetation to stabilize soil are
Ethiopian highlands reveals that farmers that attended trainings used
all costly practices, as they may require land and labor that could
several of the methods taught at higher rates and had higher income
otherwise be put towards farm productivity (Adimassu et al., 2016).
from farming compared to non-attendees. For two farming methods,
Additionally, though intercropping represents potential yield
participation in more trainings predicted greater likelihood of using the

7
N.S. Chesterman, et al. Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051

Table 5
Results of PSM probit regression of Farmer Trainings Attended (0/1) & Crop Productivity in kilograms per hectare and Rosenbaum bounds test (listed as Γ). Panel 1
included individuals in both Metkoriya and Goshebado, and used only demographic variables for matching. Panel 2 included survey respondents from Goshebado,
and used both geographic and demographic variables to match. The ATT t-statistic denotes statistical significance of the effect, with a value of 1.95 or greater
indicating 95% confidence. Variables in bold typeface indicate a significant association between training attendance and crop yield.
Crop

Wheat Beans Teff Barley Chickpeas Lentils

Panel 1
Treatment mean yield (kg/ha) 990.870 867.552 714.890 845.147 611.692 559.751
Control mean yield (kg/ha) 948.416 974.778 651.216 582.161 664.179 296.285
Difference in means 42.455 −107.226 63.674 262.985 −52.488 263.466
SE 228.539 433.701 163.956 286.351 190.674 307.360
ATT t-stat 0.19 −0.25 0.39 0.92 −0.28 0.86
Γ <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1

Panel 2
Treatment mean yield (kg/ha) 944.905 847.517 639.931 836.173 571.147 538.803
Control mean yield (kg/ha) 1153.571 1067.563 740.215 659.289 527.957 443.373
Difference in means −208.666 −220.047 −100.284 176.884 43.190 95.430
SE 228.833 462.465 184.269 522.553 355.501 390.725
ATT t-stat −0.91 −0.48 −0.54 0.34 0.12 0.24
Γ <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1

‡
Note: 90% CI, * 95% CI, ** 99% CI, *** 99.9% CI.

Table 6
Results of PSM probit regression of Farmer Trainings Attended (0/1) & Income
from Farming (Ethiopian Birr) and Rosenbaum bounds test (listed as Γ). Panel 1
included individuals in both Metkoriya and Goshebado, and used only demo-
graphic variables for matching. Panel 2 included survey respondents from
Goshebado, and used both geographic and demographic variables to match.
The ATT t-statistic denotes statistical significance of the effect, with a value
≥1.95 indicating 95% confidence. Bold typeface indicates a significant differ-
ence in income (ETB) between treatment and control groups.
Income from farming
Panel 1
Treatment mean 10228.821
Control mean 5233.333
Difference in means 4995.488
SE 1412.948
ATT t-stat 3.54***
Γ 1.93
‡
Note: 90% CI, * 95% CI, ** 99% CI, *** 99.9% CI.
reductions compared to planting the crops individually, it can also ef-
ficiently restore soil nutrients and organic carbon while continuing to
produce cereal cash crops (Agegnehu et al., 2006; Beedy et al., 2010).
Our finding that ADHENO-trained farmers use these methods more
frequently than non-participants strongly indicates that the trainings
enable farmers to overcome knowledge and resource constraints on
implementing soil conservation measures, supporting previous research
on this topic (Adimassu et al., 2016).
Nonetheless, the higher use of conservation farming methods among
trained farmers is somewhat surprising, given the finding that crop
yield is similar between trained and untrained farmers. Smallholder
farmers are sensitive to the potential risks and gains of adopting new
farming practices (Adimassu et al., 2016; Shiferaw et al., 2009), and are
highly motivated to continue using sustainable land management
practices if the techniques are linked to yield improvements over time
(de Graaff et al., 2008). However, even without measurable pro-
ductivity gains, the perceived benefits from implementing these prac-
tices can mediate their initial use and long-term adoption (Amsalu and
de Graaff, 2007; de Graaff et al., 2008), and it is possible that ADHENO
trainings are highly effective at engendering this perception among
participants. Implementation of these practices may also be mediated
by farmer perceptions of the long-term benefits of soil conservation.
Alternatively, it may take years after the implementation of conserva-
tion practices for soil health to improve to a point where crop yields
begin to increase (Badgley et al., 2007; Pittelkow et al., 2015). Thus,
while farmers that attended trainings had similar crop yields to other
farmers at the time we collected household surveys, productivity be-
tween the two groups may diverge over time.
While attendance at farmer trainings predicts use of conservation
practices on farmers’ plots, we did not find an association between the
program and landscape-level patterns in land-use intensity change.
Even so, land-use intensity appears to be in flux, with some areas in-
tensifying and other areas decreasing in intensity over time. Our in-
conclusive findings may reflect a lack of statistical power; without
Panel 2
spatial coordinates for farm plots managed by each surveyed house-
9998.779 hold, we were unable to test the relationship between training parti-
3733.14 cipation and land-use change at the household level. The murky re-
6265.639 lationship between land-use intensity and farmer trainings is also likely
1979.619
related to land tenure policy in Ethiopia. The government owns all land
3.17***
2.65 and leases land to farmers to use for short periods of time (Ege, 2017).
Unfarmed land in this area may be open grazing land, or may be co-
managed rangelands held by up to 20 households (I. Fikre, personal
communication, June 2017). The ADHENO exclosure program, not
studied here, brings together households that co-manage parcels of
particularly erosion-prone rangeland to establish exclosures for re-
habilitating vegetation. Vegetation plays an important role in providing
ecosystem services that support farmer livelihoods and native biodi-
versity, through the maintenance of soil nutrients and water catchment,
sequestering carbon and conserving native plant species, highlighting
the importance of improving vegetation structure in this area (CEFP,
2012; Tolessa et al., 2017; Yimer et al., 2007). However, there are few
ADHENO exclosures and they are small, leaving much of the land in
valleys and on escarpments as open grazing lands. Insecure or unclear
land tenure makes individual investments into reforestation and sus-
tainable land management practices difficult to achieve without larger
national policies supporting such activities (Legesse et al., 2018). As an
NGO, ADHENO is not able to enact any policies to incentivize refor-
estation or reform land tenure in the North Shewa Zone, but may be
able to impact land-use by offering trainings on livestock management
or mixed crop-livestock farming systems in the future.
Despite no difference in crop yield between farmers that attended
and did not attend trainings, the former group reported far greater
annual income from agriculture compared to the latter. It should be
noted that while crop yields found in this study are below the national
average for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia (Taffesse et al., 2011), these
yields are within range of yields reported in previous studies of crop
productivity in the Ethiopian highlands (Agegnehu et al., 2006; Amare

8
N.S. Chesterman, et al.
Fig. 2. Classified land-use/land-cover for 2007 and 2016, participation rate in farmer trainings, and change in land-use intensity over time in Goshebado kebele.
Land-cover classification was based on KOMPSAT-2 imagery from November 2007 and WorldView-2 imagery from December 2016. Village boundaries were
estimated as Thiessen polygons calculated from village centerpoints. Villages were excluded from analysis if fewer than 15% of households were surveyed.
et al., 2013; Getachew et al., 2008; Oicha et al., 2010; Vancampenhout
et al., 2006). Additionally, we matched participants with non-partici-
pants based on overall land holdings and household size, and normal-
ized crop yield by the area that each farmer dedicated to the particular
crop, making it unlikely that issues of land holdings would significantly
affect this finding.
There are several possible explanations this phenomenon. One
possibility is that ADHENO advises farmers on market access, or the
best times to sell crops in order to take advantages of inflection points
in the crop market values. We also found that as a group, training
participants devoted more land to cultivating wheat and beans – the
two most productive crops by weight in this study – than non-partici-
pants. Additionally, Getachew et al. (2008) showed that farmers can
obtain a higher land-equivalent ratio for bean-wheat intercropping in
the Ethiopian highlands, compared to cultivating either crop as a
monoculture. If ADHENO advises farmers to plant these two crops in
combination, their yields would appear to be within range of other
farmers, but they would gain far more income per unit of land. While
our survey asked whether farmers practiced intercropping, we did not
collect data on which specific crops were planted together, and in what
volumes, so it is not possible for us to test this hypothesis. Nonetheless,
the large difference in income between similar farmers in treatment and
control groups is a strong indicator that ADHENO trainings play a role
in generating agricultural income for participants, aligning with pre-
vious literature showing that farmer trainings and field schools can
effectively alleviate poverty among smallholder farmers.
5. Conclusions
This study illustrates that farmer training programs can effectively
promote the use of soil and water conservation techniques among
smallholder farmers in the Ethiopian highlands, while also improving
farmers’ abilities to generate income from crops. Given the conditions
facing farmers in the Ethiopian highlands and other erosion-prone
areas, this form of intervention may have resounding impacts on
household resilience to climate change, drought, and other shocks.
9
Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051
However, farmer trainings on their own appear to be insufficient to
mitigate soil degradation at the landscape level, and NGOs and other
practitioners may consider developing programs to leverage communal
land management and livestock-raising practices to rehabilitate de-
graded lands.
This study also produces a useful roadmap for evaluating the socio-
environmental outcomes from development interventions in circum-
stances where the program is implemented with no evaluation frame-
work in place. Many small NGOs and social enterprises have innovative
and localized approaches to improving the livelihoods and resilience of
smallholder farmers. Yet these programs often lack the resources and
capacity to establish evaluation frameworks and collect baseline data
while also implementing programs. It is critically important to under-
stand the impacts of such programs in order to identify and potentially
scale up highly effective models. By pairing a matching econometric
analysis with long-term satellite monitoring, we present a framework
for future evaluators to assess the degree to which localized interven-
tions can address the complex social and environmental challenges to
establishing resilient livelihoods in the Ethiopian highlands.
Declaration of competing interest
None.
Competing interests
The authors declare they have no competing interests. Funding
sources were not involved in the decision to publish this research and
had no influence on the findings of the research.
Consent for publication
All project participants provided their informed consent. All re-
search was performed in accordance with the policies of the University
of Michigan Internal Review Board.
N.S. Chesterman, et al. Land Use Policy 87 (2019) 104051

Fig. 3. Distribution among villages of (a) participation in farmer trainings, (b) total area, (c) percent area with no land-use change, (d) percent area with land-use
intensification, and (e) percent area with land-use extensification.

Table 7 Funding
Linear model results of land-use change at the village level. Beta coefficients are
reported with significance levels, and standard errors in parentheses. This work was supported by a grant from the NASA Land Cover and
Dependent Variable Land Use (LCLUC) program (NNX15AD40G). Commercial satellite
imagery was provided through NASA’s NGA Commercial Archive Data
Rate of increase in Rate of decrease in (cad4nasa.gsfc.nasa.gov) under the National Geospatial-Intelligence
land-use intensity land-use intensity Agency’s NextView license agreement.
Participation in farmer −0.009 (0.063) −0.131 (0.087)
trainings
Participation in seedling −0.029 (0.168) 0.385 (0.230) Acknowledgments
plantation program
Average land holdings −1.488 (0.950) 2.73* (1.305)
The authors would like to express immense gratitude to the farmers
Average income 0.000 (0.000) 0.000 (0.000)
Average education 4.218 (3.376) −0.654 (4.636) of Goshebado and Metkoriya for sharing their time and insights for the
Number of households 0.067 (0.072) −0.095 (0.098) purposes of this evaluation. This work was made possible by the
Slope 0.463** (0.120) −0.073 (0.164) University of Michigan, the William Davidson Institute, and ADHENO
Distance from town −0.007 (0.004) 0.004 (0.006)
Integrated Rural Development Association. The authors would like to
Distance from ADHENO −0.029 (0.168) 0.003* (0.001)
exclosures
thank the ADHENO staff, particularly Rahel Hiletework, Isayias Fikre,
Constant 10.912 (9.521) 0.657 (13.074) and Ayele Beyene for their support during fieldwork. The authors are
Observations 28 28 also grateful for the translation, interpretation, and survey enumeration
R2 0.680 0.554 services of Mezemir Girma, Hana Mekonen, Tesfa Hailu, Mahlet Aklil,
Adjusted R2 0.520 0.332
Nahom Desalegn, and Dawit Girma. Finally, the authors are apprecia-
Residual Std. Error (df = 18) 4.762 6.538
F Statistic (df = 9; 18) 4.243 2.488 tive of the technical support offered by the University of Michigan
Office for Consulting for Statistics, Computing & Analytics Research and
‡
Note: 90% CI, * p ≤ 0.05, ** p ≤ 0.01, *** p ≤ 0.001. Shannon Brines of the University of Michigan Environmental Spatial
Analysis Laboratory for critical feedback on analyses. The views ex-
pressed here are the authors’ alone.

10
N.S. Chesterman, et al.
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