Climate-Smart Agriculture for Ethiopia and Beyond

Smallholder farming systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have been characterized by low crop yields as well as their reliance on ecosystem services. With chronically stagnant productivity, accommodating the growing demand for food, fuel, and income sources for a population that has doubled in the last decades has mainly been accomplished by the expansion of agricultural land (through clearing forestland) and/or by increasing cropping intensity through reduced fallows and mining of soil nutrients. Consequently, soil degradation has increasingly threatened the resilience of the ecosystems on which African smallholder agricultural systems have critically depended for their food security. African smallholder systems, which have already been stressed by unsustainable use of natural resources, are further threatened by climate change. The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approaches advocate for the use of locally evolved and/or improved technologies, practices, and policies that can result in increased yield per unit area, as well as sustainable environment; combined, these approaches can meet the needs of growing populations while also maintaining resilient ecosystems. There is a broad range of diverse, climate-smart interventions, yet their individual efficacies may de-pend on how well they align with locally specific livelihood needs and contexts. The primary objective of this book is to provide guidance for academic, research, outreach, policy and development stakehold-ers to select specific (if possible) evidence-based CSA technologies, practices, and policies, or a mix thereof, to improve smallholder food production and sustain ecosystem services in Ethiopia and SSA countries. This chapter specifically elaborates on the rationales for why CSA approaches are needed, in the context of Ethiopia and SSA countries, to not only improve agricultural productivity and advance climate adaptation and mitigation goals, but also to simultaneously identify and address root causes of low soil fertility, high rates of soil erosion on farmlands, overall landscape degradation, and low and stagnant agricultural productivity, which often result in household food insecurity and poverty.

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