Soil and water conservation intervention with conventional technologies in northwestern highlands of Ethiopia: Acceptance and adoption by farmers
Section snippets
Soil erosion and conservation in Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, one of the poorest and most agrarian countries in the world, soil erosion is a major constraint to agricultural production and food security (Hurni, 1993; Bekele, 1997; Shiferaw, 1998; Zeleke, 2000; Tadesse, 2001; Sonneveld, 2002; Beshah, 2003; Bewket, 2003). The problem is more severe in the highlands (>1500 m and covering ∼45% of total area) where roughly 88% of the population lives and 95% of the regularly cultivated lands are found (FDRE, 1997; Bekele, 2003). A national level
The study site: the Digil watershed
The Digil watershed is located in Gozamen woreda (district), East Gojjam Zone, Amhara National Regional State. Situated at some 308 km distance northwest of Addis Ababa, the watershed forms part of the northwestern highlands of Ethiopia. It is representative of the cool sub-humid mid-highlands agroecological zone in the northwestern highlands of the country (MoA, 2000). The climatic condition is generally a sub-humid type. As measured at Debre-Markos (∼5 km from the site), mean annual temperature
The SWC intervention and farmers’ participation in the Digil watershed
SWC activities using conventional technologies were underway in the Digil watershed beginning early 1999. It was a 5-year resource management and development project undertaken by the local office of the agriculture ministry (Gozamen woreda office of agriculture) with financial support from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) as part of its on-farm research programme in the Amhara National Regional State. The objective of the intervention was not only to rehabilitate the
Discussion
A range of SWC technologies have been introduced in the studied watershed. The local farmers acknowledged that the technologies were effective measures against soil erosion and as having the potential to improve land productivity and lead to increased crop yields. Notwithstanding, the sustainable adoption and widespread replication of the technologies seemed unlikely. A major factor that was discouraging the farmers from adoption was that the introduced SWC technologies were not suitable to the
Conclusions
This study explores farmers’ acceptance and adoption of SWC technologies that were claimed by the implementing agency to have been executed in a farmer-participatory approach in the northwestern highlands of Ethiopia. The results reveal that the introduced SWC technologies were not suitable to the farmers’ requirements and farming system circumstances and the conservation strategy pursued was not truly farmer-participatory, suggesting that a sustainable adoption of the technologies is unlikely.
Acknowledgements
Financial support to this research was obtained from the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA). I am very grateful to all the farmers who took part in the survey. The paper has greatly benefited from comments and suggestions of the two reviewers of Land Use Policy; one of the reviewers, Dr. A. Kessler from Soil and Water Conservation Group, Wageningen University, kindly revealed his identity and helped me improve the discussion and conclusion sections.
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