2.5. Land Management Practices
2.5.1. Land Management Practices in Ethiopia
Several efforts have been made to promote sustainable land management in Ethiopia, with mixed success. For example, in most places where soil conservation was implemented in the 1970s, farmers either totally or partially destroyed the conservation structures. Of the total conservation measures implemented between 1976 and 1990, only 30 percent of soil bunds, 25 percent of stone bunds, 60 percent of hillside terraces, 22 percent of the planted trees of the reserve areas were still in place by 1994 (Nurhusen, 1995). In Ethiopia, since the 1970s, considerable efforts have been made to reverse the problem of land degradation. What were once considered to be sustainable
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Determinants to Land Management Practices
Farmers will adopt soil conservation practices if they have the necessary labor, capital and technological inputs to do so and if they perceive an immediate economic benefit (Morgan, 1996). Individuals with few current incomes and inability to obtain capital for conservation investments may not be willing or able to forgo income to maximize expected net returns over a long period. Similarly, individuals in uncertain economic situations will be inclined to use short planning horizons because they are unable to predict future costs and prices.
As poor farmers generally posses less land, they are more often engaged in off farm activities such as petty trade. This can decrease their interest to invest on soil conservation practices. According to (Hagos et al., 1999), small farm holdings and land fragmentation may undermine farmers’ interest in undertaking some kind of land improvement. For example, farmers may find the cost of hauling manure or other organic materials to distant and small plots not worth the considerable effort required. In addition, investment that can be easily damaged by free ranging livestock or subject to theft (such as trees) are less likely to be made far from the household where it is different to protect
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Policy/Institutional Support Factors
Appropriate policy environment is the pre requisite for being able to implement natural resource management process that satisfy the objectives specified by the interested profits. Government policies are not translated in to action unless there is the political will to make them work. Therefore, the situation in many countries today is that plans are made for the conservation of natural resources but they have little practical effect.
Whatever the historical background, many developing countries have sizeable portion of land that was previously reserved. As the authoritarian management has decline, population pressure and land hunger have increased. So has the chance of evading punishment for illegal encroachment on reserved land. The restriction of land was often to preserve the income or power of the ruling elites; there are also many examples where the land was deliberately with help from settlement because it was ecologically unsuitable.
2.6.2. Socio-cultural Factors
In the past, there was enough land for everyone to have some, and an increase in population just means to bring more land in to use. Getting this new land is not a simple task and it resulted in the expansion of farming activities to erosion prone marginal areas, serious deforestation, and a decrease in fallow period and continues cultivation (Habtamu, 2006; Hussen,
As the international community focuses on climate change as the great crisis of our era, it is ignoring another looming problem: the global crisis in land use. Seed Magazine
We gained the addition of 13 states with such land, there are more natural resources that can be found and more land for people to move to have farms of their own.
With the population skyrocketing, it became more and more unlikely that the general population would own their own pieces of land. People who already owned businesses had expanded to meet the demand by the increase of population, so those who tried to start up their own could not live up to the competition. People tried to find land of their own by carving into forests and swamps, yet that land was owned either by Native Americans or other countries.
Population increase was due to the life of the farmer and the food producer. When the transition to farming happened, life was more suitable for more children. When people were constantly on the move, having multiple young children was not ideal. Young children had to be carried and dealing with three young children who could not walk would result in a hard mobile life of the mother and possibly the death of the young child. When people began to farm, more villages were built. In the village, people could keep an eye on many young children. Fertility rates increased due to multiple children in a short time frame. Population increased also due to child labor being a necessity and a want. Adding to the population gave way to the children learning the ways of the domestication of plants and animals so that everyone had a job to do in the villages, which allowed the village to thrive. Farming then transitioned into food production that allowed the people to control their crops and produce their own food. The move to the life of the farmer and producer brought advantages however there was an increase in the disadvantages.
The growth in land also contributed to overproduction, which was another factor contributing to the farmer's hardships. The expansion of farmland combined with the mechanical advances in agricultural technology greatly increased production in the west.
Take, for example, that livestock agriculture and the plant-based agriculture specifically used for feeding that livestock utilizes 30 percent of land on Earth. With crops in high demand to feed the many animals that are slaughtered or otherwise used by humans, it's been found that the soil has lost a great deal of its nutritional value and has eroded to the point that, in the United States, nearly 33 percent of topsoil is diminished.
that it 's in due to human activities.. First with the vertical farming, “crops can be produced all
It is a known fact that the world population is increasing without bound; however, there is a debate if this increase is a good thing or if it will prove catastrophic. The article “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin discusses how the ever-increasing world population will exhaust the world of its natural resources, and eliminate human’s capability of survival. On the other side of the argument is Julian L. Simon who wrote “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” This article proposes the theory that with an increase in population, human’s quality of life is amplified. One particular issue that they both mention and have drastically different views on is the future of agriculture and human’s ability to sustain it.
As the world population grows at an astonishing rate, our mother earth is getting very crowded. Our natural resources are being overused and the land available for life is getting smaller and smaller. Farmers have to find ways to make what land they have usable and profitable. Farmers in general are a shrinking population. How does this relate to the general public? Without farmers we would not have food, without food we will all die. The world is realizing this problem and the best way to solve it is to find more land for habitat. We can not tack on a few million acres to earth and start using that, so we have to find somewhere else to go.
An environmental policy refers to the commitment of an organization to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues and sustainability. These environmental issues can pertain to anything from air and water pollution to deforestation and solid waste management. Today, we live in a world full of developing countries that face environmental issues and degradation every day. Yemen, known to be one of the least developed countries, is facing various environmental issues, as well as social and political challenges while on its way to development and becoming a much more stable country.
Conventional agriculture refers to the process by which farmers break up the soil using farm equipment in order to speed up the decomposition of organic matter in the soil and prepare the soil for the planting of seeds. This process is referred to as tillage, and is accomplished using certain farm implements which have been developed and specialized specifically for this task. No-till practices effectively eliminate the entire tillage process, negating the need for the equipment, gas, labor, and maintenance costs that are associated with soil tillage. The elimination of this step in the farming process can decrease farm costs a great deal, and allow many farmers more fre...
Simple farmers have always cleared the land for their crops. This damage is only minute compared to that of what happens when large plantations are planted. Such companies as Coca-Cola clear hundreds of acres to grow orange crops. These oranges are then sent back to the United States to be used in Minute Maid orange juice. Coca-Cola isn't alone, Tropicana, Ocean Spray, and most concentrates contain rain forest oranges. The problem with using this soil for agriculture is that all the nutrients are depleted within one to two years and is dead from that time on. The land is dead for centuries to come.
As agriculture has become more intensive, farmers have become capable of producing higher yields using less labour and less land. Growth of the agriculture has not, however, been an unmixed blessing. It, like every other thing, has its pros and cons. Topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, continued neglect of the living and working conditions for farm labourers, increasing costs of production, and the disintegration of economic and social conditions in rural communities. These are the cons of the new improved agriculture.
Within these countries, a large number of the country’s land is owned by a small fraction of the population. These could be owned by strongmen that are within the “in” group of the political power. Or these lands could be owned by the political power themselves as well, such as Brazil. Within Brazil, the top 10% of farmers own 85% of the land. (Duffy) Land reform will allow people the chance to grow their own food which they also could be unable to afford due to a poor economy and other factors. There is currently a movement that is pushing for land reform within Brazil.
...al. If land is not looked after, it becomes less productive and can become totally useless for sowing crops if allowed to grow back into bush.