Ten Pillars to Determine Sustainable Agricultural Productivity and Livelihood Improvement in Ethiopia: A Commentary Note to Policymakers and Practitioners

Ethiopian agriculture is constrained by different factors such as severe land degradation and nutrient depletion, poor soil fertility, crop residue removal, rain-fed farming system, low input, and low output (productivity). Low agricultural productivity is attributed to limited access by smallholder farmers to agricultural inputs, financial services, improved production technologies, access to extension packages, irrigation, disconnected agricultural markets; lack of diversified productions; and more importantly, to poor land management practices (i.e., inefficient agronomic practice) that has led to severe land degradation. Though soil-water conservation is getting attention in recent years, after a large amount of soil nutrients and natural forests are degraded and deforested, land degradation is still the biggest threat. Land degradation is further exacerbated by free-and-overgrazing, deforestation, population pressure, inadequate land use planning (i.e., without planning what suits what types of land use and why), insufficient enabling policy and financial support from financial institutions, and unequal extension visit and package access to both gender groups. Therefore, to reverse such impacts and causes of low productivity, ten main factors (pillars) are identified from the literature and recommended for further considerations by policymakers, practitioners as well as researchers. These pillars are believed in enhancing maximum productivity and improving livelihoods of the smallholders of Ethiopian farmers by renovating subsistence and traditional farming systems.