Rangelands, Drylands & Pastoralism

Traditional farming practice of rice field co-culture is a time-tested example of sustainable agriculture, which increases food productivity of arable land with few adverse environmental impacts. However, the small-scale farming practice needs to be adjusted for modern agricultural production.

Topsoil is required to be stripped and reused to maintain land productivity in mining and construction activities. However, as a great threat to unprotected soil, wind erosion on topsoil replacement sites has not received enough research attention, which hinders the efficient implementation of wind erosion control measures in the right time and place on a national scale.

Land cover patterns in sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly changing. This study aims to quantify the land cover change and to identify its major determinants by using the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Responses (DPSIR) framework in the Ethiopian Gozamin District over a period of 32 years (1986 to 2018).

Watershed based integrated land management is a recent approach to curb land degradation in Ethiopia and introduced in 2012 in Geda watershed, central highlands of Ethiopia. However, the impacts of the interventions on indicators of some ecosystem services were not assessed.

This working paper presents the results of a study commissioned by the International Centre for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) under the Grass2Cash project whose primary objective was to understand
the underlying reasons why farmers adopt ten improved forage varieties in the four Western Kenya

The convoluted nexus between bovine livestock and the dynamics of armed confrontation in Colombia is a terrain open for exploration. While a vast array of archival sources suggests a historical, problematic connection between livestock production, land dispossession and rising violence in rural settings, academic narratives remain scarce.

Drylands occupy more than 40% of the world’s land area and are home to some two billion people. This includes a disproportionate number of the world’s poorest people, who live in degraded and severely degraded landscapes.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is implementing
the Program for Climate Smart Livestock (PCSL) in Kenya, Uganda,
and Ethiopia. PCSL is designed to build the capacity of governments,
the private sector, and livestock keepers towards improving livestock
productivity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions while adapting to

Contamination of key staples with aflatoxins compromises the quality of food and feed, impedes trade, and negatively affects the health of consumers whereas acute exposure can be fatal.

Participatory rangeland management (PRM) was developed by ILRI and partners in Ethiopia, piloted and then upscaled. PRM improves the productivity of rangelands and access to resources for local rangelands users (communities).