Abstract:
Ethiopian agriculture is mainly subsistent. In such farming, the
performance of crops solely depends on nutrients inborn in the soil. This
exploitation of naturally available resources has been going on for
millennia and has resulted in continued loss of soil fertility and cover.
Most of the overexploited areas have become drought prone.
Nevertheless, farming should continue in these same places and others
because there are no alternative sources o f income available for people
dwelling in them. In order to relive these places from what they have been
enduring, introducing natural resource conservation methods is crucial.
One o f the measures that should be taken is managing crop residue in
such a way that can help improve soil fertility and prevent soil erosion.
In the Ethiopian context, the amount of crop residue left in cropped fields
after harvest is in general low. It is often the root stalks of the cropped
plant and the under story weed flora, which are left when crops are sickle
harvested. In some places in South Welo Zone, farmers were seen even
uprooting the rootstalks of small cereals to use them as source of fuel.
Whereas in combine harvested fields, which are common in Arsi and Bale
large-scale farms, more straw is left in cropped fields to be collected in
bells afterwards and yet some part remains as leftover, besides the root
stalks. However, the final crop residue left in on-farm sites are consumed
by herds of domestic animals for a period until the fields are cultivated for
the next crop season. What remain after all these is plowed under and it is
this, which might serve as source of organic matter. What is needed is to
raise the amount of crop reside incorporated every year into the soil.
The amount of crop residues incorporated and the rate of decay vary
among crops; as some decay fast, some may be eaten by animals and the
dung returned to the soil as farmyard manure. The combination of the two
factors determines the quality of residue in relation to its value for soil
conservation and livestock feed. Literature review shows that since the
inception of cultivating food crops there has been numerous ways of
disposing the residues by farmers such as burning, use as building
material, fuel wood, manure, and animal feed. Some of the options used
did not consider the concept of nutrient cycling to have healthy and
sustainable soil environment. A project was developed to look at the
utilization pattern of crop residues in East and Central Africa (ECA)
including Ethiopia. The present project is intending to look at the aspects
of crop residue use that will be friendly to the farmer as well as the soil. The project will also introduce some conservation agriculture practices
that will cater for both soil conservation and animal feed and hence
reduce dependence on crop residues as animal feed. Therefore, the overall
objective o f the project is to enhance the contribution o f crop residues to
beneficial and sustainable natural resource management (NRM), in croplivestock
mixed farming systems of high potential yet highly populated areas ECA sub-region.