Traditional farming systems, management practices and benefits to rural livelihood diversification in Ethiopia

Abstract

A traditional farming system is an ancient, locally evolved, and time-tested practice that plays a significant role in improving crop yield from a small area of land. Nonetheless, this undiluted practice is inadequately assessed and documented, which leaves the development of locally evolved technologies baseless. In light of this, this study was conducted to assess traditional farming systems, management practices, and benefits to rural livelihood diversification. Three representative sites were chosen using a representative sampling technique. In total, 355 households were selected from the study sites using a simple random sampling technique. Semi-structured interviews, direct field observations, and key informant interviews were used to collect data. Results showed that households managed their farmlands, categorizing them into home-garden, extended home-garden, regular farmland and shared cropland, mostly using indigenous knowledge. The overwhelming majority of households (96.3%) used various types of multiple cropping systems: traditional agroforestry (98.2%), mixed cropping (54.4%), intercropping (30.7%), crop rotation (6.2%), and relay cropping (4.2%). In such multiple cropping systems, households took into account morphological, physiological, ecological, and socioeconomic benefits in choosing appropriate crops that can be grown simultaneously. In order to further diversify food and income sources and make the local food system more climate-resilient, the traditional agroforestry landscape included both food and cash crops, with trees planted alongside coffee, enset, khat and other annuals. The compatibility of crop components, their organization, and the availability of appropriate varieties of crops were critical factors in the success of multiple cropping systems. Traditional knowledge on crops and management practices allowed farmers to have different settings for rotation, intercropping, and agroforestry systems. As well, the spatial and temporal portfolios that traditional farming systems offer promoted ecological functions like soil water storage, nutrient cycling, and pest and climate change regulation. In addition to fostering food and income diversification, the traditional farming system reinforces the local food system's resilience to climate change and supports sustainable agrobiodiversity management and agroecological processes.