Assessing smallholder sustainable intensification in the Ethiopian highlands,Agricultural Systems

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Assessing smallholder sustainable intensification in the Ethiopian highlands
Agricultural Systems ( IF 6.1 ) Pub Date : 2021-09-08 , DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103266
James Hammond ₁ , Mark van Wijk ₁ , Nils Teufel ₁ , Kindu Mekonnen ₂ , Peter Thorne ₁

Affiliation

CONTEXT

Sustainable intensification is one approach to increasing food production without undermining sustainability goals. In recent years new tools and indicators have been developed for broad-based assessment of sustainable intensification. However, most of these tools have been applied at field level and assessing individual technologies, while integrated assessments of multiple novel practices at farm-to-village level are lacking.

OBJECTIVE

In this study we develop and apply a data collection, analysis, and interpretation approach that results in a replicable and rapid method for a multi-variate assessment of sustainable intensification.

METHODS

Drawing on a survey of 779 participant farmers, and using the Sustainable Intensification Assessment Framework, we quantified 27 indicators grouped into five domains: agricultural production, economics, environment, human welfare, and social. We applied an expert-led threshold setting exercise to re-scale indicators, permitting aggregated and dis-aggregated visualisation onto a common axis. We developed a graphic evaluation approach to communicate the multiple domain and indicator scores and applied this approach to quantify trade-offs and synergies related to agricultural productivity in four contrasting sites in Ethiopia.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

In each site there was a notable and significant gradient of production intensity, although average crop and livestock productivity remained well below attainable levels. Higher levels of productivity were correlated with higher scores in the economic, social and agricultural domains, and in some sites they were also positively correlated with the human welfare and environmental domains. In no case was increased production intensity correlated with lower scores in any of the sustainability domains, indicating that in these relatively low-intensity systems increases in productivity will go hand-in-hand with improvements in most other sustainability domains. Synergies can overrule trade-offs in these smallholder systems in Ethiopia, if managed well.

SIGNIFICANCE

This is one of very few studies of multiple sustainable intensification technologies implemented concurrently at the household to community level. Most studies focus on individual technologies or practices within specific niches of the farming system. The method could be developed further for efficient application to various large-scale development or intensification projects, and could potentially make use of existing smallholder information databases.

中文翻译：

评估埃塞俄比亚高地的小农可持续集约化

语境

可持续集约化是一种在不破坏可持续性目标的情况下增加粮食产量的方法。近年来，已经开发了新的工具和指标，用于对可持续集约化进行广泛的评估。然而，这些工具中的大多数已应用于田间水平并评估个别技术，而缺乏对农场到村庄水平的多种新做法的综合评估。

客观的

在这项研究中，我们开发并应用了一种数据收集、分析和解释方法，从而为可持续集约化的多变量评估提供了一种可复制且快速的方法。

方法

通过对 779 名参与农民的调查，并使用可持续集约化评估框架，我们量化了 27 个指标，分为五个领域：农业生产、经济、环境、人类福利和社会。我们应用了专家主导的阈值设置练习来重新调整指标，允许在公共轴上聚合和分解可视化。我们开发了一种图形评估方法来传达多领域和指标分数，并应用这种方法来量化与埃塞俄比亚四个不同地点的农业生产力相关的权衡和协同作用。

结果和结论

尽管平均作物和牲畜生产力仍远低于可达到的水平，但每个地点都存在显着且显着的生产强度梯度。较高的生产力水平与经济、社会和农业领域的较高分数相关，在某些地点，它们还与人类福利和环境领域呈正相关。在任何情况下，生产强度的增加都不会与任何可持续性领域的得分降低相关，这表明在这些相对低强度的系统中，生产力的提高将与大多数其他可持续性领域的改进齐头并进。如果管理得当，协同作用可以推翻埃塞俄比亚这些小农系统中的权衡取舍。