Conservation Agriculture (CA) - a technology which has been introduced to Ethiopia long

ago but not scaled up

Conservation Agriculture is an agricultural practice that utilizes three interlinked principles

meaning reduced tillage, cover crop and crop rotation.

CA is simple agricultural practice that can be easily adopted by both better off and resource
poor farmers in Ethiopia.

CA has come into picture because of severe soil erosion in North America

In Ethiopia, intensive tillage for land preparation and the removal of crop residue from
agricultural fields, coupled with raged topography contributes to a high level of soil erosion
on agricultural fields, depletion of soil fertility, and decline in productivity

In addition, in drier parts of Ethiopia crop production is severely affected by moisture stress
and organic matter depletion of the soil

Consequently, if properly implemented Conservation Agriculture is reported to be a key

agricultural activity that helps to overcome the above-mentioned agricultural challenges.

Adoption of conservation agriculture has numerous benefits among which

 reduction of soil erosion,

 reduction of soil acidity
 reduction of termite damage,
 improving of organic matter content of the soil,
 improving water percolation and
 moisture and nutrient holding capacity of the soil are worth mentioning.

 The technology saves time and labor and is suitable for women farmers, female
headed households including youth and men farmers.
 The technology is suitable for both smallholder farmers as well as for medium and
large commercial farms.
 It works in almost all agro-ecologies where crop and livestock production are
practiced from very low land to moist highland agro - ecologies and it also works for
the major crop produced in Ethiopia
 Conservation agriculture is recently, recognized as a key agricultural activity to curb
the adverse effects of climate change through carbon sequestration and reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions

World experience is telling us that countries that have widely incorporated conservation
agriculture into their agricultural system have overcome numerous challenging factors that
are contributing to low agricultural productivity and are currently known for high level
agricultural production and productivity which helped them to transform agriculture from
subsistence to market oriented commercial production system.

Global Exprince on CA
Worldwide CA is implemented over 180 million hectare of land

45000
40000
35000
30000
25000
20000 2009
15000 2014
2016
10000
5000
0
A il a a lia a ca a n
US az tin ad ra ric Afri ny da
Br ge
n an st A f ke su
Ar
C Au S.

Figure 1. Global spread of CA in 2009, 2014 and 2016 in 000 ha.

African Experience

Chart Title
400
300
200
100
0
a ia e wi e a a ia co n s
f ric mb biqu ala abiw han eny unis roc uda ther
A a G k T o S o
S. Z am M b M
oz Zim
M
Figure 1. Spread of CA in Africa in 2016 in 1000ha

Efforts made in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia CA technology was introduced and first CA demonstration was conducted on
maize crop in 1998.

Since then, numerous demonstrations were conducted on various crops under varying agro
ecological conditions.
Meanwhile the EIAR has also conducted verification trails under varied agro ecologies and
social settings and proved that CA is a very simple technology that can be easily adopted by
Ethiopian small holder farmers.

Table 1. Yield of major crops under CA and NCA in quintal /ha

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
NC NC NC NC
crop CA A CA NCA CA A CA A CA A
Maize 49 42 50 44 49 45 50 46 50 45
Teff  - -  10 11 12 11 13 11 12 11
Wheat  - -  27 26 26 21 22 21 23 22
Fbean  - -  -  -  16 12 15 12 25 17
Chickpe
a - - - - - - 14 13 11 10
CA=conservation agriculture and NCA none conservation agriculture
Source: Proceedings of the workshop on CA, Jan 4/2003. Melakasa

Table 2: comparison of income from CA and NCA

 Descriptio Maize Teff wheat Chickpea Fababean
n
  CA NCA CA NCA CA NCA CA NCA CA NCA
Production 144 148 117 116 146 151 133 126
cost 8 4 4 4 9 6 767 900 0 8
Gross 405 339 239 222 290 270 203 115 212 184
income 1 8 0 0 2 3 2 9 0 6
260 191 121 105 143 118 126
net income 3 4 6 6 3 7 5 259 790 578
Source: Proceedings of the workshop on CA, Jan 4/2003. Melakasa

Limitations of CA adoption in Ethiopia

Although CA has been introduced to Ethiopia long ago adoption so far is not encouraging
since CA was not adequately integrated into the existing agricultural extension system.

Agricultural officials at federal and regional level lack consensus on nationwide

dissemination of CA.

The lack of common understanding about CA as well as absence of supportive enabling

environment for its promotion, and the fact that the national agricultural program is mainly
serving tillage-based agriculture are the main reasons for CA not spreading faster in
Ethiopia.