Three major river basins flow out of Ethiopia into Sudan, constituting the Eastern Nile basin (the White Nile flows from the south). These are the Tekeze-Atbara flowing out of northern Ethiopia, the Baro-Akoba- Sobat flowing from southern Ethiopia, and the Blue Nile (Abay) sandwiched between the other two. The Blue Nile Basin, called the Abay in Ethiopia, is the largest branch of the Nile draining the Ethiopian highlands. It covers an estimated area of 311,437 square kilometers and is shared by Ethiopia and Sudan. It joins the White Nile in Khartoum, Sudan.

Using a multi-criteria optimization technique for system analysis, this paper quantitatively characterizes baseline production activities, resource management and environmental relationships of the mixed crop–livestock farming system at the Jaba micro-watershed, upper Blue Nile Basin, to get insights that inform sustainable intensification of small-scale agriculture.

A project proposal whose aim is to promote more appropriate resource management on smallholder crop-livestock farms in East Africa is described. Prototypes of mixed farming systems will be developed to characterise farming systems according to their management objectives. These prototypes will then be used to map improvements of the farming systems by combining prototyping and simulation modelling. Scenarios will be explored to assess natural resource management interventions that promote sustainability of these prototype-farming systmes.

Examines decision making models formulated to guide the allocation of funds between alternative lines of research, issues emerging from the survey to the formation of ILCA's research policy, and various theories that account for the direction that research has taken in different contexts and reviews the past allocation of resources to livestock research in 10 African countries; includes proposal for further work.

Mali is one of the least developed countries with an economy that relies heavily on rainfed cereal production. Rural communities are faced with extreme poverty as a result of unpredictable rainfall pattern and lack of appropriate agricultural intervention practices. Most agronomic practices in support of development in the past had emphasized farm-level productivity issues with limited scope for managing interactions among components and actors beyond the level of the farm. Several studies showed different techniques practiced at farm level to improve the agricultural productivity.