Impacts of Zero Grazing Techniques on the Livelihood of Rural Community of Tigrai
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This paper was done to evaluate the impact of controlled grazing intervention (zero grazing ) on household’s livelihood (child education, milk and crop production and burden on women) that help policy and decision makers invest more on this policy reform to replicate widely and catch community ownership and leadership in land management easily in the region. 600 households from each policy villages and control villages were chosen using random sampling techniques where every household head was given equal chance of being included without bias which meets the study need. The impact of zero grazing was
evaluated using selected crop, milk production, child education and women burden indicators that were analyzed in three different ways: comparison of means, regression, and IV-2sls. Overall, the study indicates that households living in zero grazing villages enjoy a better quality of life and most of the economic, social, and environmental outcomes are better in participant households than in nonparticipant households due to zero grazing. The impacts are quantifiable, statistically significant, positive and visible in all outcome indicators. However, most of the impacts are modest in magnitude due to low official and community
involvement in its implementation, which seems largely limited to villages partially with access to irrigation, low ratio of grazing area and short distance to school. This is not surprising, as the flow of benefits from zero grazing is slowly emerging and will take time to translate into substantial impacts. Last but not the least, this study recommends, development impact of zero grazing is very material as it helps provide a better quality of life and potential for incremental crop production as well as child education. It should be noted that rural zero grazing is not only, of course, a necessary, but also a sufficient condition for expanding income opportunities, enhancing soil fertility, improving environmental and ecosystem service.
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