A review of soil fertility management and crop response to fertilizer application in Ethiopia: Towards development of site- and context-specific fertilizer recommendation

More than 80% of the Ethiopian population is dependent on agriculture, which contributes about 50% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 80% of its export earnings. Although the agricultural sector is the engine of economic growth and the country has designed an “Agriculturalled Industrialization”, the agricultural sector is still characterized by severe soil erosion, high levels of nutrient mining, low use of external inputs, low productivity and limited capacity to respond to environmental shocks. Thus, the country is grappling with a daunting challenge: produce more food for a fast-growing population on low fertility soils on land owned by poor smallholder farmers who are unlikely to afford adequate input use. To address these challenges, several efforts are being made since the 1960s to assess the potential effects of various sources of organic and mineral fertilizers on crop yield and soil fertility status of the differing farming systems in the country..