In countries like Ethiopia, where agriculture is crucial for the economy, managing natural resources like soil and water is vital. Key challenges include declining soil fertility, reduced crop productivity, and issues such as land degradation, erosion, acidity, salinity, and inadequate use of fertilizers, which threaten food production.

Ethiopia faces significant challenges to food security due to land degradation, declining soil fertility, increased population, and climate change, leading to shortages of farmland and water. Despite having large areas of suitable land for crops, the productivity of these crops is low. One major reason for this low productivity is the issues related to soil fertility, which is vital for supplying water and nutrients for plant growth.

Southwest Ethiopia region faces numerous natural resource-related challenges, including deforestation, land degradation, and soil acidity. These challenges are exacerbated by factors like population pressure, agricultural expansion, and climate change, creating a cycle of degradation and socio-economic problems

Understanding the causes of declining natural resource base including soil fertility is crucial to developing effective strategies to improve food production and support economic growth. Research and development should prioritize finding solutions to these issues, particularly for small-scale farmers. Although various efforts have been made to improve soil and water management, the information gained from these initiatives has not been well organized or widely shared.

There is a need to promote existing best practices and improved technologies to enhance sustainable natural resource use efficiency and soil health for greater agricultural productivity. Ongoing research activities in the region focus on different aspects of soil fertility and water management across various ecological zones. Therefore natural resource management research directorate is dedicated to advancing sustainable natural resource management in the region.

General objective

• To protect, maintain, and improve the productivity of natural resources through integrated technology packages for natural resource management and by enhancing agricultural production and productivity in order to increase communities living standards based on sustainable natural resource bases.

Specific objectives

• To assess, characterize, classify and map fertility status of agricultural soils
• To maintain and improve productivity of agricultural soils/lands
• To manage and improve productivity of acidic soils
• To increase agricultural productivity and production through integrated land/soil management technology packages based on agro-ecologies and farming/pastoral systems
• To improve agricultural productivity through small scale irrigation and water harvesting technology
• To assess, characterize, classify existing agroforestry practices and introduce best fitting agroforestry practices in different agroecology of the region.
• To assess, characterize, classify and map forest resources including bamboo
• To maintain and improve productivity of forest resources through integrated forest management technology packages and
• To undertake research on agriculture-climate/weather relationships in sustaining productivity and production of agriculture 

Research Focus Areas

Research on natural resources focuses primarily on the following areas:

1. land and soil management, which includes improving soil fertility through organic fertilizer usage, nutrient calibration studies and integrated soil fertility management; managing soils with limitations, such as acidity; managing degraded lands, such as eroded, and others;
2. watershed based soil and water conservation through physical and biological soil and water conservation technologies;
3. small scale irrigation and water harvesting
4. land scape improvement through maintenance and introduction of different agroforestry practices, plantation forest, woodlot management;
5. Forest management, which includes agroforestry, natural forests, non-wood forest products, and others. Natural forests are a verdant blanket of land that act as the “lungs of the earth” in mitigating the effects of climate change; and
6. Agro meteorology is related to the effects of climate variability and change on agriculture, and the conservation of forest resources and the protection of remaining natural forests are essential for existence in relation to the effects of climate change, particularly in the region.

Research Teams

Research on natural resources focuses primarily on four areas:

1. Soil Fertility Improvement
2. Soil and water conservation and watershed management
3. Small scale irrigation
4. Agroforestry and Natural forest management

Therefore, the teams’ integrated natural resources research efforts aim to support a balance between increasing agricultural productivity and production, enhancing societal livelihoods, and maintaining a sustainable base of natural resources through the appropriate integrated technology packages in the suitable agro-ecologies and farming/pastoral systems in watershed management approaches in diversified agro-ecologies and farming systems in the region.