Agriculture in the 21st century faces multiple challenges: it has to produce more food and fibre to feed a growing population with a smaller rural labour force, more feedstocks for a potentially huge bioenergy market, contribute to overall development in the many agriculture-dependent developing countries, adopt more efficient and sustainable production methods and adapt to climate change (FAO, 2009b). As the world’s human population of over 7.3 billion is expected to hit 9.1 billion by 2050, food needs have also increased. Maintaining the momentum of growth in agricultural productivity will remain crucial in the coming decades as production of basic staple foods needs to increase by 60 percent if it is to meet expected demand growth (FAO, 2009a). With farming being the dominant land use in Ethiopia, options for increasing food security and improving livelihoods include agricultural land expansion which has led to deforestation and loss of important ecological goods and services; and intensified agricultural production., which has led to land degradation and exhaustion leading to a decline in land productivity (Bishaw, 2001)(Oba & Kotile, 2001)

Extensive agriculture involves expansion into new lands, but the competition for land from other human activities makes this an increasingly unlikely and costly solution, particularly if protecting biodiversity and the public goods provided by natural ecosystems is given higher priority (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Therefore, intensive agriculture remains the most viable solution to increasing food production. Traditionally agricultural intensification has been defined in three different ways: increasing yields per hectare, increasing cropping intensity (ie two or more crops) per unit of land or other inputs (water), and changing land use from low-value crops or commodities to those that receive higher market prices. However, these approaches have negatively affected the environment, hence the need to undertake agricultural intensification sustainably (Pretty, Toulmin, & Williams, 2011). Sustainable agricultural intensification therefore is defined as producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts and at the same time increasing contributions to natural capital and the flow of environmental services.