Farming system research

Affordances of agricultural systems analysis tools: A review and framework to enhance tool design and implementation

The increasingly complex challenges facing agricultural systems require problem-solving processes and systems analysis (SA) tools that engage multiple actors across disciplines. In this article, we employ the theory of affordances to unravel what …

Retaining forests within agricultural landscapes as a pathway to sustainable intensification: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia

There are increasing calls in Africa for 'sustainable intensification' of agriculture with the aim of increasing productivity whilst minimizing the negative environmental and social impacts. This paper questions whether adopting a landscape approach …

Different ways to cut a cake: comparing expert-based and statistical typologies to target sustainable intensification technologies, a case-study in Southern Ethiopia

Understanding farm diversity is essential to delineate recommendation domains for new technologies, but diversity is a subjective concept, and can be described differently depending on the way it is perceived. Historically, new technologies have been …

Understanding people and forest interrelations along an intensification gradient in Arsi-Negele, Ethiopia

This chapter presents the results of a scoping study conducted along an agricultural intensification and forest cover gradient from Arsi-Negele town to Munessa Forest in southern Ethiopia. It summarizes preliminary research in the study area led by …

Impact of farmland exclosure on the productivity and sustainability of a mixed crop-livestock system in the central rift valley of Ethiopia

Livestock provides numerous benefits to smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa, but also represents a potential agent of environmental degradation. Exclosures have been implemented in grazing areas for the past decades in Ethiopia and have been effective …

Combining multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis to describe the diversity of rural households

Capturing agricultural heterogeneity through the analysis of farm typologies is key with regard to the design of sustainable policies and to the adoptability of new technologies. An optimal balance needs to be found between, on the one hand, the …

Understanding the impact and adoption of conservation agriculture in Africa: A multi-scale analysis

Conservation agriculture (CA) is increasingly promoted in Africa as analternative for coping with the need to increase food production on the basis of more sustainable farming practices. Success with adopting CA on farms in Africa has been limited, …

Delineating the drivers of waning wildlife habitat: The predominance of cotton farming on the fringe of protected areas in the Mid-Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's Mid-Zambezi Valley is of global importance for the emblematic mega-fauna of Africa. Over the past 30. years rapid land use change in this area has substantially reduced wildlife habitat. Tsetse control operations are often blamed for this. …