Restoring soil fertility in the East African highlands through participatory research

Land degradation is the principal environmental factor behind declining percapita food production in sub-Saharan Africa. Causes include nutrient mining, soil erosion, poor land management and lack of resources. Risingpopulation pressure often obliges farmers to utilize vulnerable, sloping land withaggravated erosion and degradation (Figure 1). A major concern of many stakeholders in highland areas, besides maintainingthe fertility of lands that are still productive, is how to rehabilitate degraded arable lands that are on the verge of going out of production. The Tropical Soils Biology & Fertility Institute of CIAT(TSBF) and the African Highlands Initiative (AHI), working together with the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization (EARO) in an action research approach with farmer research groups, has shown that the following methods are effective in implementing integrated soil fertility management in the Areka area of southern Ethiopia