Watershed conservation-based market oriented commodity development: A move towards resilient farming?

Abstract

Reversing watershed degradation and food insecurity has been one of the major development
challenges in the semi-arid areas of northern Ethiopia where rainfed dependent mixed croplivestock
farming is predominant (Berhanu et al., 2010; SERA, 2000). As an entry point,
community based physical soil and water conservation has been launched at village levels
(Belete, 2009). The conservation has been initiated on cultivable lands and gradually extended to
watershed levels. The conservation and enclosure of watersheds have resulted in improved water
retention capacity and recovery of perennial bee forage plants in upstream hilly sides, and
revitalized surface and groundwater in the downstream of the watersheds (Belete, 2009). Despite
the intensive interventions in watershed conservation and recovery, the contribution to the
economy of smallholder farmers has been low. The watershed approach has been useful to
harmonize the use of soil, water and vegetation in a way that conserves these resources and
improve household income. The watershed management can be augmented with market oriented
commodity developments along the watershed resources gradient: upstream, valley bottoms and
downstream. In order to increase benefits to farmers, participatory, demand driven, skill and
knowledge based market oriented commodity development has been introduced, tested and
promoted in Atsbi-Womberta district, northern Ethiopia, since 2005/06. The objective of this
paper is to present the response to the integrated interventions along the watershed resources
gradient.