Research Focus Areas
Research on natural resources focuses primarily on three areas:
- land and soil management, which includes improving soil fertility through nutrient calibration studies and integrated soil fertility management; managing soils with limitations, such as acidity, salinity, and vertisols; managing degraded lands, such as eroded, termite-damaged, and compacted soils, and others;
- 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
- Agrometeorology 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 Oromia.
Research Teams
Research on natural resources focuses primarily on four areas:
- Soil Resource Survey
- Soil Fertility Improvement
- Soil and water conservation and watershed management and
- Agroforestry
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 agroecologies and farming/pastoral systems in watershed management approaches in diversified Oromia’s agroecologies and farming systems.
Kefyalew Assefa
Director of Natural Resource
Phone: +251-967813191
e-mail: assefakefyalew@gmail.com
Finfinne, Ethiopia
