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Understanding the relationship between livelihood strategy and soil management: empirical insights from the central highlands of Ethiopia

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Abstract

This paper aims to understand the relationship between households’ livelihood strategy and soil management using commonalities among rural households. We grouped households into four distinct types according to similar livelihood diversification strategies. For each household type, we identified the dominant income-generating strategies as well as the main agronomic activities pursued. The household types were: (I) households that pursue a cereal-based livelihood diversification strategy (23 %); (II) households predominantly engaged in casual off-farm-based strategy (15 %); (III) households that pursue an integrated livelihood strategy (38 %); and (IV) households with a potato-based strategy (24 %). We then explored the relationship between these household types and improved soil management practices. The results showed that households generating their income primarily by growing potatoes (Type IV) were not only economically “better off” but also more likely to undertake improved soil management practices than those pursuing less economically rewarding, cereal-based (Type I) or casual off-farm-based (Type II) livelihood diversification strategies. This was largely attributed to differences in access to institutional capital that determined the degree of agronomic orientation, rather than household assets, such as age, education level of the head, and family labour. Orienting lower income households toward input and output markets through improving their access to institutional capital may help build livelihood strategies with high-economic return that in turn provide incentives to undertake improved soil management practices. The identified household types may guide entry points for development interventions targeting both food security and agricultural sustainability concerns in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The approach can be applied to different geographical regions with similar livelihood circumstances. Development actors need to take into account the specific contexts of their regions and resources needed to develop a typology when designing pathways for any targeted interventions.

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Notes

  1. We used two broad concepts of livelihood strategies (Scoones 1998); the first one is “livelihood diversification”-identified based on combinations of cash revenue sources that contribute to total household income. The second one is agricultural production orientation which we refer to as “agronomic activities”-identified based on combinations of crops and livestock portfolios.

  2. It refers to the production of more outputs per unit area through capital investments or increase in labour inputs, whereas extensify refers to more land under cultivation (Carswell 1997; Scoones 1998). In our study context, a household’s land allocation to relatively more capital or labour intensive crops (e.g., potatoes, vegetables) can be seen as an indicator of a tendency toward agricultural intensification.

  3. A kebele is the lowest administrative unit in Ethiopia.

  4. These included improved tomato and onion varieties; improved chickpea and lentil varieties, and applying best agronomic practices in growing these vegetables and legumes.

  5. This included mainly soil bund terraces which are constructed along the contour in the field. The soil bunds are sometimes integrated with grass/shrubs and live species planted alongside the bunds in order to keep the terrace intact for future use.

  6. A drainage ditch constructed within and around the plot to prevent flooding on sloping fields.

  7. It is designed to reveal natural groupings or the “best” number of clusters within a dataset that would otherwise not occur.

  8. Repeated growing of potato in the same plot of land.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Danish Government for funding Ali’s MS.c scholarship and Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA) for financially supporting the field work. We would like to thank Jessica Rothschuh for her valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank the Editors and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that greatly improved the paper. We also would like to acknowledge all individuals who assisted us during data collection and the cooperation of the farming community in the study areas. We thank the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) for facilitating this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Ali Mohammed Oumer

  2. Department of Food and Resource Economics, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 25, 1958, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Carsten Nico Hjortsø

  3. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Andreas de Neergaard

  4. Department of Agricultural Economics, Research Extension and Farmer Linkage, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Holetta Research Centre, P.O. Box 2003, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Ali Mohammed Oumer

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Correspondence to Ali Mohammed Oumer.

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Oumer, A.M., Hjortsø, C.N. & de Neergaard, A. Understanding the relationship between livelihood strategy and soil management: empirical insights from the central highlands of Ethiopia. Food Sec. 5, 143–156 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-013-0242-3

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