ABSTRACT:
This study was conducted in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, to determine the yield and farm profitability impact of stone terraces. Seventy terraced and 70 non-conserved plots were equally divided between wheat (Triticum aestivum) and fava beans (Vicia faba). Two quadrates each 8 m2 (86 ft2) were marked on each terraced plot: one just above the terrace (soil accumulation zone) and another one parallel to this but below the next upper terrace (soil loss zone). Only one quadrate (control zone) was marked on each of the non-conserved plots. Results indicate that (1) grain and straw yields for both crops were significantly higher in the soil accumulation zone than in the soil loss zone or in the non-terraced control plots; (2) grain and straw yields from the soil accumulation zone were more stable than those from control zone; (3) over a 30-yr planning horizon, stone terraces yielded a 50% rate of return, roughly equivalent to reported farmer discount rates in Ethiopia.
Footnotes
Berhanu Gebremedhin is a post-doctoral scientist for the International Livestock Research Institute, Ethiopia, and former graduate research fellow at Michigan State University: Scott Swinton is associate professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.; and Yibabe Tilhun is agronomist, Relief Society of Tigray (REST), Ethiopia. They thank the Rockefeller Foundation for the financial support of this project, Mekelle University College for the institutional support during jeki work, as well as Carl Eicher and Thomas Reardon, Michigan State University, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.
- Copyright 1999 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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