Gully erosion reduces agricultural productivity by destroying valuable land resources, increases sediment concentrations, reduces water quality, and fills up reservoirs. Gully rehabilitation has proven to be challenging especially in the high-rainfall areas of the Ethiopian Highlands and has therefore had limited success. This paper describes a successful low-cost gully rehabilitation effort with community participation in the Birr watershed in the Blue Nile basin that begun in early 2013. Initially, farmers were reluctant to participate for religious reasons, but with the aid of local priests and respected elders, community discussions, and a visit to a rehabilitated gully, a consensus was reached to rehabilitate a 0·71-ha upland gully. The rehabilitation measures consisted of regrading the gully head at a 45°slope, constructing low-cost check dams from locally available materials, and planting Pennisetum purpureum grass and Sesbania sesban. At the end of the first postimplementation rainy season, 2,200 tons of soil was conserved by the constructed check dams and newly planted vegetation, compared with soil losses of 680 and 560 tons in two untreated, nearby gullies. In 2014, an additional 3,100 tons of soil was conserved. In 2013, the marginal rate of return (MRR) on the gully rehabilitation investment was 2·6 based on the value of increased forage production alone. When we include trapped soil nutrient values, the rehabilitation MRR was increased to 10. Although these numbers are impressive, the best proof of the success was that farmers on their own initiative rehabilitated an additional five gullies in 2014.

In the past decade, to improve crop production and productivity, Ethiopia has embarked on an ambitious irrigation farming expansion program and has introduced new large- and small-scale irrigation initiatives. However, in Ethiopia, poverty remains a challenge, and crop productivity per unit area of land is very low. Literature on the technical efficiency (TE) of large-scale and small-scale irrigation user farmers as compared to the non-user farmers in Ethiopia is also limited. Investigating smallholder farmers’ technical efficiency (TE) level and its principal determinants is very important to increase crop production and productivity and to improve smallholder farmers’ livelihood and food security. Using 1026 household-level cross-section data, this study adopts a technology flexible stochastic frontier approach to examine agricultural TE of large-scale irrigation users, small-scale irrigation users and non-user farmers in Ethiopia. The results indicate that, due to poor extension services and old-style agronomic practices, the mean TE of farmers is very low (44.33%), implying that there is a wider room for increasing crop production in the study areas through increasing the TE of smallholder farmers without additional investment in novel agricultural technologies. Results also show that large-scale irrigation user farmers (21.05%) are less technically efficient than small-scale irrigation user farmers (60.29%). However, improving irrigation infrastructure shifts the frontier up and has a positive impact on smallholder farmers’ output.

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Chickpea is important for its contribution to enhance food security and as source of cash income for a large proportion of the rural households ever. Among the pulses growing in the Woreda, Chickpea is the major crop both in terms of volume of production and area cultivated. It is also the major source of cash income to the farmers among the crops grown in the area. However, enhancing chickpea farmers to reach markets is a key issue needed in the study area. This study was aimed to analyze factors determining market supply of chickpea at farm household level using the data collected from randomly selected 123 farmers. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Robust Ordinary Least Square regression model. The results of econometric analysis showed that productivity of chickpea, size of land allocated for chickpea production, lagged price, education level of household head and year of experience in chickpea production of the household head positively and significantly affected chickpea market supply at farm household level. Based on the study results, policy interventions like encouragement of the concerned body to increase the productivity of chickpea, strengthening access to education, strengthening trainings are required.