Household Energy And Soil Nutrient Implications For Crop Production Household Finances And Greenhouse Gas Emissions In The Central Highlands Of Ethiopia

This study tries to assess household energy and soil nutrients with particular emphasis onrnimplications for crop production, household finances and greenhouse gas emissions in thernCentral Highlands of Ethiopia. Household survey, focus group discussions, key informantrninterviews, observations and measurements were used for data collection. Kitchen PerformancernTest and Controlled Cooking Test were applied for assessing stove efficiency. On-farm trialsrnwere established to evaluate effects of fertilizers on soil and yield. Descriptive statistics, a pairedrnsample t-test, one way ANOVA, correlation coefficients and linear regression were employed forrnstatistical analysis. Microsoft excels and SPSS version20 were used for data presentation andrnanalysis. Crop residues and dung cakes accounted for 80(±3) % by energy content and 85(±4) %rnby dry mass weight of total biomass fuel consumption. Mean per household nutrient losses werern109(±8) kg yr-1nitrogen, 26(±2) kg yr-1 phosphorus, (150(±11) kg yr-1 potassium and 3000(±300)rnkg yr-1 organic carbon. Rich farmers lost significantly more carbon and nutrients in fuel thanrnfarmers in other wealth groups. However, these losses were spread over a larger area, so lossesrnper land area were significantly higher for medium and poor than for rich farmers. This meansrnthat the land of poorer farmers is likely to become degraded more rapidly due to fuel limitationsrnthan that of rich farmers, so increasing the poverty gap. The estimated financial loss perrnhousehold due to not using dung and crop residues as organic fertilizer was 162(±8) US$ yr-1.rnHowever, this is less than their value as fuels, which was 490(±20) US$ yr-1. Therefore, farmersrnwill only be persuaded to use these valuable assets as soil improvers if an alternative, cheaperrnfuel source can be found. Substitution of a three-stone open fires with improved stoves resultedrnin significant improvement of fuel use efficiency (p

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