STUDIES ON FACTORS THAT DETERMINE FARMERS WILLINGNESS TO PARTICIPATE IN SOIL CONSERVATION PRACTICES AT GINDEBERET WOREDA, WEST SOWA ZONE OF OROMIA REGION, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

In Ethiopian, much of the lowlands are characterized by heavy clay soils and low rainfall probably, over 80% of the population live in the highlands, and keeps about 70% of the cattle. It is common for farmers to till or graze slopes with a gradient greater than25% (Milas, 1984; Kebede and Jacob1988). Population increase had resulted in reduction of fallow land while fuel wood and dung collection had deprived the soil of and tree cover. At the turn of the century, roughly 40% of ETHIOPIA seems to have been forested, in 1984; various estimates put the extent of forest at between 2% and 4% (Timberlake, 1985; Mackenzie, 1987). Measures which can be used to mitigate or avoid desertification, such as, appropriate forestry, fuel wood supply plantations, dry land cropping strategies and range managements have received more attention during the last decade. The ETHIOPIAN highlands are among those agricultural lands in Africa that are threatened by accelerating land degradation, due to soil erosion. In response to the extreme degradation of the soil resource base, new land conservation technologies have been introduced in some areas of the Ethiopian highlands, through food for work incentives. However, the technologies failed to win acceptance by the land users. So far, conservation projects failed to consider the land users’ socio-economic, demographic and technical factors from the very inception. In order to design a useful plan of action it is 2 necessary to understand local peoples’ response to soil conservation plans. Therefore, the major concern of this study is to identify determinants of farmers’ willingness to participate in soil conservation practices that address farmers’ socio-economic, demographic and institutional factors. It is also aimed at assessing farmers’ perception of erosion hazards and their willingness to pay. The study was conducted in Gindeberet District, West Shoa, Oromia region, west Ethiopia. A total of 100 farmers had been surveyed in the study area in August and September 2011 to generate the data used in the study. The result of the study reveals that among 17 variables hypothesized to influence farmers’ decision to participate in soil conservation practices in the study area, six variables of found powerful. The education level of the house head was found to have a positive and significant impact on farmers’ willingness to participate in soil conservation practices, implying that educated farmers where more opt in understanding the problem of soil erosion and could easily decided to take part willingly. Farmer’s perception of erosion hazard was found strongly and positively associated with farmers’ willingness to participate in soil conservation practice. About 80 % of the respondents who were willing to participate in soil conservation practice perceived soil erosion as a problem. The size of shared farm land was negatively related to the participation. It attributed to the fact that share cropping agreement may have short time horizon. Therefore, the higher the size of land a farmer shared the less likely it is that he make conservation investments. 3 Non-crop land affects the willingness of the farmers to participate. This is because as more land is put out of production, the farmers realize a reduction in their productive land and tend to be unwilling to invest in conservation measures. Conservation undertaking in the past was positively related to the participation. Because of farmer who knows the available option for taking soil erosion is more responsive to conservation undertakings. The attitude of the farmers towards soil conservation was found to affect positively the willingness to participate in soil conservation practices. This is possibly because of responsiveness to soil conservation technology which will differ positively with the strength of conservation related attitude.