Using family balance (i.e., combined net farm and non-farm incomes less family expenses), an output from an integrated model, which couples water resource, agronomic and socio-economic models, its sensitivity and uncertainty are evaluated for five smallholder farming groups (AeE) in the Olifants Basin. The crop management practiced included conventional rainfed, untied ridges, planting basins and supplemental irrigation.

Investigates the effects of improved surface drainage on the productivity of Vertisols in a wheat-and-chickpea cropping trial conducted in 1987 at ILCA;s Debre Zeit research site in the Ethiopian highlands. Chickpea plots were subjected to four irrigation treatments, viz, no irrigation, irrigation at planting, 35 days and 70 days after planting. The trial showed that with a starter irrigation to aid the germination of a second crop, sequential cropping of two crops in the same growing season is feasible in the Debre Zeit.

Formulation of cost-effective preventive control programmes for helminth infection in small ruminants should be based on sound epidemiological knowledge of the time relationship between contamination of pastures and the seasonal availability of infective larvae in a given geographic area. Epidemiological data generated from an on-station experiment involving the use of tracer lambs and monitoring of pasture contamination levels in the central Ethiopian highlands clearly showed a distinct seasonal pattern of nematode infection in sheep.

Adapting to climate risks is central to the goal of increasing food security and enhancing resilience of farming systems in East Africa. We examined farmers’ attitudes and assessed determinants of adaptation using data from a random sample of 500 households in Borana, Ethiopia, Nyando, Kenya, Hoima Uganda, and Lushoto, Tanzania. Adaptation was measured using a livelihood-based index that assigned weights to different individual strategies based on their marginal contributions to a household’s livelihood.