Factors influencing adoption of improved structural soil and water conservation measures in Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Agriculture remains to be the leading sector that contributes enormously to economic development in Ethiopia. Despite its significant contribution to livelihoods, the sector faces persistent challenges due to depletion of natural resources and soil erosion that resulted in diminishing crop and livestock productivity. In order to curb the effects of land degradation, the Government of Ethiopia has been taking serious measures to expand Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) practices throughout the country. Despite the efforts made, the adoption of new practices by farmers have been generally low. This study was aimed at assessing factors influencing smallholder farmers' decision on the use of improved structural SWC practices in Haramaya district, eastern Ethiopia. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 120 farm households and 248 plots. A structured interview schedule was used to collect primary data. Descriptive and inferential statistics and Multinomial Logit (MNL) regression model were used to analyze the data. Results: The key findings showed that a host of socio-demographic, economic and institutional factors significantly affected smallholders' decision to adopt improved structural SWC. In this study, we found that education, farming experience, plot area, distance of the plot from dwelling unit, number of economically active household members, and extension contact were the significant predictors of using improved SWC structures. Conclusions: Based on our findings, we concluded that improved SWC measures should be scaled up through a concerted effort of extension workers, local administration and other relevant non-state actors. In particular, the extension system should encourage rural communities on sustainable management and use of natural resources. Moreover, the need to create learning opportunities through facilitating appropriate educational and training programs for farmers and focusing on proper management of available economically active household members should be emphasized.

Farmers’ Adoption of Soil and Water Conservation Practices: the Case of Lege-lafto Watershed, Dessie Zuria District, South Wollo, Ethiopia

“…Farmers want to invest more on the nearest farmlands as far away farmlands discouraged them to construct and maintain soil and water conservation practices. This result is in line with the previous studies [12,16,17,26] who reported that the longer the walking distance between farmland and residential area, the less in the adoption of soil and water conservation practices.…”

“…The farmers' education status affects their use of soil and water conservation practices positively and significantly among the farmers of Lege-lafto watershed. This finding corroborates with the finding of previous studies [1,10,16,26] who stated that better education level of household heads having a strong and positive relationship with farmers' adoption of SWC conservation practices.…”

Factors influencing the implementation of agroecological practices: Lessons drawn from the Aba-Garima watershed, Ethiopia

“…They indicated that the practice involves a lot of digging which is very challenging and requires more people to start using it. The issues discussed above support the indication of some studies conducted in the highlands of Ethiopia (e.g., Mekuriaw et al, 2018;Wordofa et al, 2020) that suggested that the active involvement of farmers and technical support from the government is crucial to start and sustain the implementation of physical SWC measures The difficulty in implementing exclosures and its sustainability concern relates to the collective action requirement of exclosure practices versus the reluctance of individuals in committing themselves to collective activities. During FGDs, farmers indicated that achieving consensus among community members is difficult, as farmers have diverse interests on communal lands and the ways they would like to use them for grazing animals.…”

Determinants of Farmers’ Level of Interaction with Agricultural Extension Agencies in Northwest Ethiopia

“…Although ordered probit and logit models yield similar inferences, they assume standard normal and logistic distributions of the error terms, respectively. An ordered probit model was used in this research as it is a commonly used tool in other related research such as [37][38][39][40][41][42].…”