Residents of Echmare, a remote village in northern Ethiopia, have not had an easy life. This region of the country has often experienced food shortages, and even famine. Just ten years ago, the community lived with the constant threat of hunger and poverty. Years of deforestation, and soil and land degradation contributed to poor harvests. Until 1991, these problems were further exacerbated by civil war.

Poverty, low agricultural productivity, and natural resource degradation, however, are not unique to Echmare. Worldwide, approximately 1.8 billion people live on such less-favored lands, and struggle with many of these problems. Most of the rural poor in developing countries live in less-favored areas.

Land is considered less-favored, or marginal, due to poor soil quality, inadequate rainfall, rugged terrain, short growing seasons, or other factors that limit agricultural productivity. Places that lack adequate irrigation systems or insufficient farmland to support a relatively large population are less-favored as well. Areas having high agricultural potential can also be considered less-favored if farmers do not have satisfactory access to basic infrastructure, such as roads, and markets.

People who live in marginal areas struggle with similar challenges, but less-favored lands are quite diverse. They include the semiarid and arid tropics of Africa and South Asia, mountain communities in South America and Asia, hillside areas in Central America, and much of the highlands in East and Central Africa.

The East African highlands consist of areas above 1,200 meters in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, northern Tanzania, and Uganda. These areas represent approximately one-quarter of the land in East Africa, and they are home to more than 50 percent of the combined population of these countries. Rural population densities in the highlands are the highest in Africa, with well over 500 people living on one square kilometer, in some places. As a result, farm sizes are small throughout the highlands, usually only one or two hectares in size, or less than five acres.

In hopes of identifying successful strategies to improve the livelihoods of farmers, such as those in Echmare, researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are leading a study to verify policies, programs and technologies that can help achieve sustainable development of less-favored lands in the East African highlands. A major goal of the research program is to understand how people at all levels-international, national, community and farm-can work together to improve land management.

This emphasis on marginal lands is relatively novel. Traditionally, researchers, governments, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have pursued development strategies that focus on favored areas, believing that returns on investments would be greatest in these regions. Experts expected that increased food production and rapid economic growth in favored areas would ensure food security and enable poor farmers to migrate out of less-favored lands.

But, despite large investments in favored areas, millions of people still live in less-favored parts of developing countries. Rapid population growth continues, and poverty and natural resource degradation have actually worsened. As a result, the threat of famine remains severe in many places. At the same time, investments in favored areas face diminishing returns, and environmental problems are increasing in these areas.

Rapid population growth, maximum use of prime farmland, and declining agricultural productivity in favored areas are compelling developing country governments to consider investments in less-favored lands. Although yields are relatively low for many types of crops in less-favored areas, IFPRI research shows that alternative and innovative uses of land and labor can be a productive way to protect land and increase incomes. With the right investments in less-favored areas, communities can achieve economic growth, while reducing poverty and environmental degradation.

Echmare is one such success story. Facing a continual threat of food shortages brought on by poor soil and land quality, the villagers decided to take a new, and creative approach to land management. First, they divided community wasteland into small plots, and then assigned them to households. While the land remained communal property, families were responsible for private tree planting on their designated plots.

The farmers of Echmare worked hard to ensure the survival of each tree, and the results were outstanding. Nine out of ten trees survived to full growth, a significant increase from rates as low as one in ten on other community woodlots in the region. The mature trees have slowed soil degradation, and land that was previously unworkable now supports a valuable asset. The villagers have been able to harvest, and profit from some of the trees, increasing their household incomes.

Echmare's use of communal land was so innovative that this tiny and relatively poor village, in a remote part of Africa, gained international recognition. It also caught the attention of the regional government, which has decided to allow other communities to allocate degraded hillsides for private tree planting. Echmare's successful tree planting program also encouraged scientists conducting research on less-favored lands in Ethiopia to look for other examples of successful development pathways in Ethiopia and other parts of the East African highlands. Collaborating with local partners, the researchers are identifying other productive practices, and determining which land management and development policies are best suited to particular environments.

By identifying successful and unique pathways to sustainable development in less-favored areas, and providing this information to policymakers, researchers are hopeful that Echmare will soon be one of many success stories in the highlands of East Africa.