| dc.description.abstract | This study is concerned with the impact of crop-livestock integration on
food production and farm incomes in highland farming systems in Ethiopia.
Structural food deficits and rural poverty are important household and
economy-wide problems. The study uses empirical data that were obtained
from 900 rural households in 23 villages in the low potential cereal livestock
agro-ecological zone of the Ethiopian highlands. Using stratified random
sampling, data were collected through direct measurements, structured
formal questionnaires, field observations, group interviews and from
secondary sources. Statistical techniques (e.g., principal components) and
whole-farm linear programming have been applied to complete the analysis.
There are significant differences between households measured by
age-sex structure, resource (e.g., land and capital) endowments, resource
exchange contracts, and land use practices. Markets for farm labour,
agricultural land and animal traction are evolving and involve different interhousehold
resource exchange contracts. Important household goals include
subsistence food production, ownership of livestock and income generation.
Several factors constrain improved farm production including inclement
weather, diseases, pests, poor transport and market infrastructure. Strategies
to achieve household goals include (i) planting different crops in noncontiguous
fields, (ii) owning different livestock species, (iii) on-farm grain
storage, and (iv) staggered piece-meal sales of farm produce. Sources of
non-farm income include input (land, labour and traction) rentals, sale of
firewood and cow dung cakes. The proportionate contribution of cereals and
pulses to household cash income decreases as the number of livestock
increases and more grain tends to be stored by households having more
livestock. Farmers with livestock leave more land under fallow, have more
land under soil conservation and practise less soil burning.
Timely availability of work oxen is crucial in the farming system. It
permits households to diversify food production, increase farm income and
use less family labour. At low levels of livestock and pasture productivity, the
analysis shows that ownership of cattle and oxen is a more profitable
integration strategy than sheep. At higher levels of livestock productivity,
ownership of crossbred dairy cows is a more profitable integration strategy
than local cattle or indigenous sheep. At higher levels of both livestock and
pasture productivity, improved sheep is a more profitable innovation than
local or crossbred cattle. This indicates that improvements in agricultural
performance will require different technical and policy interventions to suit
different resource endowments, constraints and needs of different types of
households. Application of the sampling and analytical approach employed in
this study is urged in further socio-economic research in the Ethiopian and
other highland farming systems. | en |
