Comprehensive land husbandry technologies /CLH/ driven up crop productivity!

Comprehensive land husbandry technologies suitable for mountainous landscapes were put in practice some years ago to curb down soil loss on the hillsides.

ORDA Ethiopia’s initiative on comprehensive land husbandry technologies driven up crop productivity. The organization has remarkable impacts which can be taken as exemplary to be scaled out throughout the region in particular the country in general.

Resilience Food Security Activity Project, implemented in a consortium comprising World Vision (Lead), CARE and by ORDA Ethiopia which aimed to address livelihoods, health, nutrition and WASH, disaster and climate risk management including further strengthening of the inclusion of girls, women and youth empowerment from September 30, 2016 to September 29, 2021.

Comprehensive land husbandry technology aims to increase productivity through hillside intensification and demonstration of agricultural practices to alleviating poverty in rural areas.

It was funded by the strategic partner-USAID and played a great role in supporting labor-intensive public works, including various physical and biological soil and water conservation structures.

The land husbandry farming system involves a modified watershed approach that includes sustainable land husbandry measures for hillside agriculture on selected sites which uses land management techniques (soil bunds, terraces, cut-off drains, water ways, afforestation and reforestation) as well as strengthening of terraces with risers to develop appropriate practices for both rain-fed and irrigated agriculture and increase production of seasonal and perennial crops.

Before land husbandry technologies were introduced, farmers in certain hilly and rugged areas prone to severe soil erosion suffered from chronic poverty due to unproductive land coupled with poor agricultural practices.