A Comparative Analysis of Yield Gaps and Water Productivity on Smallholder Farms in Ethiopia, South Africa and Tunisia

Jovanovic, Nebo; Musvoto, Constansia D; Clercq, Willem de; Pienaar, Cou; Petja, Brilliant Mareme; Zaı̈ri, A.; Hanafi, S.; Ajmi, Tarek; Mailhol, Jean‐Claude; Cheviron, Bruno; Albasha, Rami; Habtu, Solomon; Yazew, Eyasu; Kifle, Muluberhan; Fissahaye, Degol; Aregay, Gebremeskel; Habtegebreal, Kiros; Gebrekiros, Abreha; Woldu, Yirga; Froebrich, J.

doi:10.1002/ird.2238

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The farmers' decisions and crop prices are endogenous in how cropland areas do not respond to rainfall variations, but instead, farmers shift from one crop to another. This demonstrates the sociohydrological complexity of the smallholder farming system (Pande and Savenije, 2016;Niles and Brown, 2017;Jovanovic et al, 2020;Lyu et al, 2020a;Pande et al, 2020). The interviews corroborate that the farmers decide on the types of crops to grow every season based on their prediction of rainfall using traditional rainfall prediction practices (Balehegn et al, 2019;Wedajo et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Smallholder Farmer's Adaptability to Anthropogenic and Climate-Induced Variability in the Dhidhessa River Sub-basin, Ethiopia

et al. 2021

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Ethiopia depends on rain-fed agriculture with limited use of irrigation for agricultural production. More than 90% of the food supply in the country comes from low productivity rain-fed smallholder agriculture. Since the livelihoods of many farmers depend on rainfed agriculture, this paper investigates how smallholders adapt to climate variability. Dhidhessa sub-basin of the Blue Nile river basin is home to many vulnerable immigrant smallholders from other parts of Ethiopia. Our study focuses on this sub-basin to understand how crop production and patterns have depended on rainfall. Secondary data on land cover and croplands, the number of households growing crops, crop yields, crop prices and area covered by three major crops (teff, maize, and sorghum) are analyzed over a period 2000–2019 and interpreted in light of a primary household survey of 135 farmers in the basin. Results show that almost 40% of the basin is under crop cultivation, and the area under cultivation has been growing 8.6‰ per year. Irrespective of rainfall variability, the number of households practicing crop cultivation has also been growing over the years. This means that more farmers are moving into the basin to cultivate. Analysis reveals that adaptation strategies are at play. Farmer decisions to grow which crops are sensitive to rainfall and their expectations of crop prices resulting from rainfall variability. Their decisions and crop prices are endogenous to the smallholder sociohydrology of the basin, leading more farmers to grow Teff relative to other crops in years of lower rainfall. These decisions are due to the lower sensitivity of Teff prices to rainfall variability and farmers' expectations of higher Teff prices relative to other crops as rainfall decreases. Such behavior also induces climate resilience, enabling farmers to respond to climate variability rather than migrating out of the basin. Moreover, it allows more farmers to migrate in and engage in crop cultivation within the basin. Such an adaptive strategy based on past experiences offers a way forward to incorporating adaptation mechanisms in sociohydrological models to simulate and assess water futures for similar basins worldwide.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Smallholder Farmer's Adaptability to Anthropogenic and Climate-Induced Variability in the Dhidhessa River Sub-basin, Ethiopia

et al. 2021

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“…Within EAU4Food, local participatory experiments were accompanied by traditional disciplinary studies in order to provide further insight into specific problems. Relevant multidisciplinary efforts presented in this special issue are: (i) comparison of crop water productivity (Jovanovic et al ., ); (ii) examination of yield response in relation to different irrigation and fertilization scheduling scenarios under varying climatic conditions (Albasha et al ., ); (iii) simulation of better irrigation scheduling (Habtu et al ., ); (iv) advancing methods to extend life cycle analyses (LCAs) at territory scale (Pradeleix et al ., ). Despite the integrated CoP–LPA approach applied in EAU4Food, realizing an uptake of results from such in‐depth studies in the design and execution of farmer‐led experiments was not achieved within the 4‐year project lifetime.…”

Section: Integration Of Results From Different Disciplines Classicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transdisciplinary Innovation in Irrigated Smallholder Agriculture in Africa

Froebrich

Ludi

Bouarfa³

et al. 2020

Irrigation and Drainage

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Boosting the productivity of smallholder farming systems continues to be a major need in Africa. Challenges relating to how to improve irrigation are multi‐factor and multisectoral, and they involve a broad range of actors who must interact to reach decisions collectively. We provide a systematic reflection on findings from the research project EAU4Food, which adopted a transdisciplinary approach to irrigation for food security research in five case studies in Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, South Africa and Tunisia. The EAU4Food experiences emphasize that actual innovation at irrigated smallholder farm level remains limited without sufficient improvement of the enabling environment and taking note of the wider political economy environment. Most project partners felt at the end of the project that the transdisciplinary approach has indeed enriched the research process by providing different and multiple insights from actors outside the academic field. Local capacity to facilitate transdisciplinary research and engagement with practitioners was developed and could support the continuation and scaling up of the approach. Future projects may benefit from a longer time frame to allow for deeper exchange of lessons learned among different stakeholders and a dedicated effort to analyse possible improvements of the enabling environment from the beginning of the research process. © 2020 The Authors. Irrigation and Drainage published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Commission for Irrigation and Drainage

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“…Therefore, the well-being status of the respondents may be negatively affected by these constraints. Since the 1st and 2nd ranked constraints are not related to irrigation water, Jovanovic et al (2019) emphasised that providing access to irrigation water by itself is not enough, as smallholders also require a broad range of support services (Devaux et al 2018;Diawara et al 2018) (access to inputs, credit, and output markets) in order to achieve economic viability in small-scale irrigation schemes. Additionally, the least constraint experienced by farmers utilising small scale irrigation systems and those not utilising small scale irrigation systems was lack of marketing information ( =1.21), which could be as a result of poor agricultural extension information delivery in the study area.…”

Section: Types and Frequency Of Small-scale Irrigation Systems Used By Women Farmersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of small scale irrigation on women farmers’ well-being status in Sikasso region of Mali

Tijani¹,

Kone²

2020

jae

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The study examined trends in development activities of the Anambra State Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development between 1991 and 2013. The study identified the trends in policy and programme initiation, staff recruitment and development, and funding, in the ministry. It employed secondary data through records, documents and annual reports. Results show variation in the percentages of programme initiated and implemented within each year between 1991 and 2013. The ministry did not participate in formulating policies in 46% of the programmes implemented in the state. However, 46% of all the programmes initiated had been concluded, while 54% of all the programmes initiated in the state are still active. The results showed that a total of 403 staff were recruited within the period into the various departments, with the highest number of recruitment (252) occurring between 1991-and 1995 and the least (22) took place from 2006 to 2010. The majority (91) of staff recruited had the ordinary national diploma (OND) and only 30 and 3 persons had the bachelor of science and doctor of philosophy, respectively. The trend in the funding pattern dwindled over time. Out of the five listed human capacity building programmes, staff trainings were organised only between 1991-1995 and 1996-2000). There is need for a change in government commitment to agriculture in the area of funding, human resource and policy as these are key drivers of development. Government should increase the proportion of manpower and create adequate opportunity for training and development of staff of the ministry. Keywords: Policy and programmes of the ministry of agriculture, funding of ministry of agriculture, staff recruitment and capacity building.

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A Comparative Analysis of Yield Gaps and Water Productivity on Smallholder Farms in Ethiopia, South Africa and Tunisia

Cited by 20 publications

References 29 publications

Smallholder Farmer's Adaptability to Anthropogenic and Climate-Induced Variability in the Dhidhessa River Sub-basin, Ethiopia

Smallholder Farmer's Adaptability to Anthropogenic and Climate-Induced Variability in the Dhidhessa River Sub-basin, Ethiopia

Transdisciplinary Innovation in Irrigated Smallholder Agriculture in Africa

Effects of small scale irrigation on women farmers’ well-being status in Sikasso region of Mali

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