Climate-smart agricultural practices in Ethiopia for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions: A review
Abstract
This paper aimed to assess climate-smart agricultural practices in Ethiopia, discuss the contribution of climate-smart agricultural practices for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, and examine determinant factors of climate-smart agricultural practices in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Conservation agriculture, integrated soil fertility management, agroforestry, crop diversification, and improved livestock feed and feeding practices are among Ethiopia's best climate-smart agricultural practices. Combination of the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices such as zero-tillage, increased crop diversity, and retaining crop residue on-farm can mitigate increased SOC in non-flooded crops that change in a significant ton of CO2e ha-1 year-1. In addition, a mitigation potential of CH4 in reduced irrigation of paddy rice farms was changed in ton CO2e ha-1 year-1. It was found that productivity-enhancing interventions in the tropics could reduce emission intensity in dairy systems by up to 0.9 t CO2e per milk. Agroforestry practices and the addition of organic fertilizers on the farm increased mitigation potential of 784093 t CO2e and 193050 t CO2e biomass of carbon and SOC per year, respectively. Adoptions of climate-smart agricultural practices are affected by factors such as farming factors, technology inaccessibility, environmental factors, policy design and social expertise, negative attitudes and motivations of farmers, farmers' socio-demographic factors, and farmers' socioeconomic factors. To reverse the situations, preparing targeted climate-smart agricultural practices to areas that are likely to provide the most significant GHG reduction potential and demonstrate these practices to other areas should be encouraged to learn for similar agroecology.