Economics of agroforestry land use system, Upper Blue Nile Basin, northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

In the northwest Ethiopian highlands, Fagita Lekoma district, farmers’ are practicing different land use systems such as crop land use, fodder land use, tree based land use and a combination these land use systems. Acacia decurrens based small-scale agroforestry (SSA) land use system is commonly practiced. However, the economic advantage of the A. decurrens based SSA land use system is not yet investigated. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the productivity and economic benefit of the A. decurrens based SSA land use system. Within the district, five investigation sites were selected where A. decurrens based SSA land use system (LUS) widely applied. The study was designed in five treatments with five replications and the test crop was Teff (Eragrostis teff, E. abyssinica) and the test agroforestry tree was A. decurrens. The treatments were; (1) Sole crop (Teff) LUS, (2) Sole fodder LUS, (3) Crop—A. decurrens intercropped LUS, (4) Fodder—A. decurrens intercropped LUS, and (5) Sole A. decurrens LUS. The result shows that the Teff—A. decurrens intercropped, fodder—A. decurrens intercropped, and sole A. decurrens LUSs, respectively, were found to provide better income for small-holder farmers. The Teff—A. decurrens intercropped LUS provided 1.3 and 1.2 times more income than the sole Teff and sole Acacia LUSs, respectively. The fodder—A. decurrens intercropped LUS provided 11 times more income than the sole fodder LUS. These are the main reasons motivating farmers to change the sole Teff and sole fodder LUSs to mixed/intercropped LUS. In general, A. decurrens intercropped based SSA land use system was found to provide better income for small-holder farmers. Hence, the mixed land use system is recommended to be practiced by farmers and could be up-scaled to other areas having similar agro-ecological situations.