One of IFAD’s less frequent approaches to combating rangeland degradation has been the institution of physical land improvement programmes. In the case studies included here, this approach included such technologies as fertilizer application, planting, seeding, reforestation and land scarification. The reasons for such reduced emphasis on land improvement technologies include, inter alia, reservations regarding their sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, the aim has been increasingly to educate and encourage clients to introduce such measures themselves, through empowerment of associations and training, rather than to attempt expensive and less sustainable large-scale fertilization, reseeding, shelter-belt planting or sand-dune stabilization initiatives.

To obtain best results, land improvement should be combined and coordinated with grazing management techniques. For example, land resting may be necessary to allow seeds to grow. Moreover, no land improvement initiative will be sustainable unless the problems that degraded the range in the first place, such as over-stocking, are removed. The ecological implications of introducing new and improved plant species must be examined and careful consideration given to such factors as drought tolerance, palatability for livestock, nutritional balance and effects on existing vegetation. Depending on how well the plants are able to propagate themselves, it may be necessary to establish a local capacity for seed production, as in the case of the Western Savannah Project — Phase II in The Sudan.

The application of fertilizer to range areas for the purpose of improving forage growth has been attempted in a number of IFAD projects, including the Qinghai/Hainan Prefecture Agricultural Development Project in China. In this case, application of the technology produced disappointing results and the project later abandoned the objective of applying fertilizer to open rangeland, promoting it only in some fenced areas. An obvious constraint on use of the technology is the cost of fertilizer, which is often beyond the reach of IFAD’s target group. Similarly, the planned establishment of 51 400 ha of improved pasture in the Northern Pasture and Livestock Development Project in China was not implemented. After the MTR, most areas introduced a less expensive, lower-intensity pasture improvement technology known as ‘semi-improved pasture’, which involved seeding extensive areas by plane. By project completion, 111 000 ha of such semi-improved pasture had been planted.

Relevant IFAD Projects