Soil and Water Conservation Perceptions and Practices among Small Scale Farming House Holds: The Case of Borena Woreda, South Wollo (2011 G.c).

Abstract

Ethiopia has been severed with land degradation problems. Among others, Soil erosion is a serious threat for environmental degradation. Poor soil and water conservation (SWC) practices and lack of effective planning and implementation of approaches for conservation are responsible for accelerating degradation on agricultural lands. These problems are among the factors to the outbreak of famines in the country which initiated the Government of Ethiopia and its foreign partners to emphasize on SWC. The purpose of this study is to identify SWC related awareness and practice of farmers as well as interface of farmers’ SWC practices with local schools. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources through review of related document, questionnaire survey, formal and informal interview and field visit. The overall findings show that majority of the farmers recognized and have good awareness about the existence, major causes, indicators and impact of soil erosion. The majority of respondents perceived most of indigenous technologies from useful to very useful but not in a position to accept and act most of modern(introduced) technologies on their own private initiatives. Farmers’ SWC investment was influenced positively and significantly with farmer's perception about severity of soil erosion, farm experience, labor force availability, farms' slope, farmer’s access to credit and tenure security while negatively and significantly influenced with off farm activity, fertility level and fragmentation of farmers’ plot. The networking of farmers with local school was found to be very weak. Generally, Farmers were not quite committed to SWC measures. Since reducing soil erosion is likely to be a less important objective for the farmers than securing immediate food needs, conservation measures should be followed by other inputs such as improved seeds to address immediate problems of the farmers.

Keywords: Indigenous and introduced soil and water conservation practices, farmers' awareness, farmers' attitude, networking of farmers with local school.