Physical soil and water conservation structures: adoption and challenges to smallholder farmers in southern Ethiopia

This study was conducted in Wonago Destrict, Southern Ethiopia with the objective of assessing the response and challenges of smallholder farmers towards soil and water conservation structures. Multi-stage sampling procedure was followed to select the kebeles1 and the households for the study. The data was collected from 120 randomly selected sample households from three selected rural kebeles using probability proportional to size sampling techniques. Structured interview schedule was developed, pre-tested and used for collecting the essential data. Focus group discussions and key informant interviews were also conducted to generate qualitative data. In addition, secondary data were collected from relevant sources to substantiate the data collected by questioner. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the nature of data by indicating the significance of the relationship between dependent variable and independent variable. Ordered logit model was used to determine the relative influence of independent variables on the dependent variable. The result of descriptive statistics revealed that out of the total sample respondents 55% were adopters and 45% of them were non-adopters. It also indicated that in the study area, livestock holding, education, sex, participation in training of physical soil and water, non-farm activity, distance of farm land from residence and slope were found to be significantly affecting adoption of physical soil and water conservation technology by farmers. The model result revealed that sex of headed household, education of headed household, participation on training of physical soil and water conservation and livestock holding were found positively and significantly affect adoption of physical soil and water conservation structures. While the distance of farm plot from residence and non-farm activity were negatively and significantly related with adoption conservation structures. Thus, consideration of those variables would help to improve adoption of physical soil and water conservation technology among farm households. 1Kebele- The lower administration unit in the Ethiopian government structure