Winners and losers: Exploring the differential impacts of agricultural expansion in Ethiopia and Ghana

Jellason, Nugun P.; Robinson, Elizabeth; Katic, Pamela; Davies, Joanne E.; Devenish, Adam J. M.; Po, June Y. T.; Martin, Adrienne; Adanu, Selase Kofi; Gebrehiwot, Tagel; Teklewold, Hailemariam; Franks, Phil; Adolph, B.

doi:10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100176

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…They may not have access to savings or credit that is needed to intensify agricultural production on their limited landholding. Hence the only option would be to expand into uncultivated land as long as the household has sufficient labor (Jellason et al, 2022).…”

Section: Loss Of Grazing Landmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Mixed Method Approach for Analyzing Drivers of Land Use Land Cover Change in the Northwestern Ethiopian Highlands

Bogale,

Damene,

Seyoum

et al. 2024

Preprint

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This study gives empirical evidence on the drivers of land use land cover change by conducting qualitative assessment first, and then making use of time series data for quantifying the relationship between land use land cover change and factors that cause the change. Analyzing the drivers of land use land cover change employing a mixed method approach gives good ground for the selection of exogenous variables as well as justification of the results of the quantitative analysis. Temporal changes of land use land cover in a given time are interdependent with changes in the previous years which needs time series data analysis. Vector autoregressive models with exogenous variables were used to analyze the time series data. The findings revealed demographic and environmental factors were the main causes of land use and land cover change. Population growth was found among the key drivers for losses of the natural vegetation on the one hand and rehabilitation of bare lands and grazing lands on the other hand, through contributing productive labor force for rehabilitating gullies, construction of soil and water conservation structures, and plantations of trees on degraded lands. This implies population growth can be an opportunity or a threat for sustainable natural resources management depending on how the available labor force is used. Climatic factors like maximum temperature and precipitation were also important causes of change in land use land cover. The study has important contributions to improving land use practices through designing appropriate land resources management policies.

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Section: Loss Of Grazing Landmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Mixed Method Approach for Analyzing Drivers of Land Use Land Cover Change in the Northwestern Ethiopian Highlands

Bogale,

Damene,

Seyoum

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Other reasons include drought, climate change, and variability [20,25,26], increasing demands for food and fuel [27], and increases in agricultural output prices and income [28,29]. In some countries, such as Zambia, most deforestation initially happens for timber extraction and charcoal production-the cleared land is then used for farming [30]. Nearly 4 Mha of African forests is cut down each year, at almost double the speed of the world's deforestation average [31].…”

Section: Land Use Implicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This research was carried out as part of a transdisciplinary research project on Social and Environmental Trade-offs in African Agriculture (https://www.sentinel-gcrf.org/ accessed on 14 February 2023 The project explored the drivers and impacts of agricultural expansion into natural habitats-predominantly forests-in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia, and how land use trade-offs are perceived and managed by stakeholders. Six locations (two per country, see Figure 1 and Table 1 for details) were systematically selected for field research in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia, based on GIS analysis that identified agricultural/forest frontiers, using the following criteria [53]:…”

Section: The Research Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include the "Coffeenovation" project of NABU, the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union [83], in the Kaffa biosphere reserve (E1), and environmental monitoring and participatory forest management in the Bale Mountains National Park (E2) by a project led by the Frankfurt Zoological Society [84]. During earlier research carried out in the six sites on the impacts of agricultural expansion [53], farmers were able to name multiple benefits of the forests, including both short-term benefits (provision of firewood, medicinal herbs, honey, and thatching grass) and longer-term ones (regulation of microclimate and the water cycle and reduction in erosion). In discussions during and after the game, several players explained that they expand their farms out of necessity because, in real life, they are unable to intensify their production (see Section 4.1 above).…”

Section: Awareness Of Environmental Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Farmers’ Decisions on Agricultural Intensification and Cropland Expansion in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia through Serious Gaming

Adolph

Jellason

Kwenye

et al. 2023

Land

Self Cite

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This paper explores how increasing agricultural productivity through agricultural intensification may influence farmland expansion decisions of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia. Six pairs of farmers at each site (72 in total) from different wealth groups were involved in serious games sessions that simulated different institutional, economic, and governance contexts, with players choosing their resource allocation accordingly. The approach was used to explore with farmers, in a ‘safe space’, whether an increase in agricultural productivity and profitability via intensification would reduce or end farmland expansion into natural habitats. The results show that, under certain conditions (such as poor forest governance and lack of alternative income-generating and investment opportunities), agricultural intensification can lead to more agricultural expansion at the expense of natural habitats, such as forests and grasslands. This suggests that intensification strategies to promote increased productivity may need companion strategies to protect forest ecosystems from expansion at the agricultural frontier.

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“…Most of the impacts have been widely known and are mostly associated with booms and busts [5,6] as well as trade-offs, such as low, long-term real income levels per capita [5], the loss of biodiversity, and reduced carbon stocks [6][7][8]. The trade-offs are attributed to negative impacts resulting from a decline in the delivery of ecosystem services, although synergies have also been found [3,9,10]. Other negative impacts of cropland expansion range from changes in land quality [11] to nutrient losses with decreased agricultural productivity and soil ecosystem services [12,13], mostly caused by huge nutrient exports and a reduced capacity for recycling [14][15][16] caused by above and belowground carbon losses [15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential Impacts of Cropland Expansion on Soil Biological Indicators in Two Ecological Zones

Neina

Agyarko-Mintah

2023

Sustainability

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Agricultural expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by different farm ages in smallholder communities. This study investigated changes in microbial indices broadly (i) at the reconnaissance survey level in four agro-ecological zones and (ii) in different farms at the forest (Dompem) and forest–savanna transition (Adansam) zones, as influenced by the duration of cultivation. Soils from one-year (first cultivation of cleared forest/fallow), three-year, five-year, and ten-year farms were analyzed for basic soil properties, active or labile carbon (POXC), basal respiration (BR), microbial biomass (Cmic) using permanganate oxidizable C, alkali trap, and chloroform fumigation incubation. In both study levels, POXC content was <1% of soil organic carbon (SOC) in all zones, higher in the wet agro-ecological zones, and positively correlated with SOC (r = 0.70, 0.81; p < 0.01, p < 0.001). Dompem SOC and BR declined by 1–23% and 6–25% (p < 0.001), respectively, in the first three years; Cmic (p = 0.002) and %Cmic/SOC (p = 0.610) decreased from three-year farms onwards. Conversely, the Adansam SOC, BR, Cmic, and %Cmic/SOC rather had irregular trends. The microbial indices were influenced by exchangeable acidity, the sum of exchangeable bases, and effective cation exchangeable capacity negatively or positively, followed by SOC, pedogenic compounds, particularly dithionite-citrate iron (Fed), oxalate iron (Feox), and lastly, soil pH. Therefore, understanding the degree, direction, and changing aspects of these drivers of soil ecosystem services is necessary for sustainable soil management practices in different agro-ecological zones.

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Winners and losers: Exploring the differential impacts of agricultural expansion in Ethiopia and Ghana

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

A Mixed Method Approach for Analyzing Drivers of Land Use Land Cover Change in the Northwestern Ethiopian Highlands

A Mixed Method Approach for Analyzing Drivers of Land Use Land Cover Change in the Northwestern Ethiopian Highlands

Exploring Farmers’ Decisions on Agricultural Intensification and Cropland Expansion in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia through Serious Gaming

Differential Impacts of Cropland Expansion on Soil Biological Indicators in Two Ecological Zones

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