Farmer’s Perception on Soil Erosion and Land Degradation Problems and Management Practices in the Beressa Watershed of Ethiopia

Abstract

In Ethiopia erosion and land degradation on the livelihood resource had become a key issue, resulted for food insecurity and difficult to break through the poverty gap using subsistence farming. Previously implemented soil and water conservation practice were not halted the threat, because it was mass mobilization without detailed study of real situation and without convicting farmers. Over sighting the past experience, community based watershed management practice was recommended as a possible option against the ongoing problem. Therefore, this paper analyzed farmer's perception on soil erosion and degradation problems and their management practice. From 92 randomly selected households using survey, formal and informal discussion with farmers and field observation were employed to generate the data. The result indicated that farmers were acknowledged the prevalence of soil erosion and land degradation in their watershed (93.5%) and affecting their livelihoods. However, mostly they noticed erosion and degradation when it forms gullies. They identified many prominent causes for natural resource degradation such as improper conservation practice, traditional farming practice, continuous cultivation without fallow periods, deforestation and over population. To tackle the ongoing problems, many ranges of conservation technologies were used by farmers. Following the intervention and rehabilitation practice, the rate of erosion and degradation overtime moderately reduced (58.7%). Though the practice was not demand driven and site specific management practice. Finally, this study concluded important points which needs immediate consideration for community based watershed management practice effort not only for the study area but also for the country at large are: Identifying and integrating technical as well as efficiency of indigenous and site specific and demand driven technology help to cope erosion and degradation hazard-hence increase short and long term benefit obtained from the practice.

Effect of Level Soil Bund and Fayna Juu on Soil Physico-chemical Properties, and Farmers Adoption Towards the Practice at Dale Wabera District, Western Ethiopia

“…Regarding signs with which it can be identified, they rightly mentioned visible erosion features such as sheet, rills, gullies, and landslides. This is in agreement with [54] who reported the same results for Beressa watershed Ethiopia. [11], also reported 98.4% of the surveyed farmers recognized that soil erosion was a problem in their own farm.…”

Farmers’ perception on soil erosion in Ghana: Implication for developing sustainable soil management strategy

“…Consistent with the present erosion indicators, Bukari et al [ 67 ] have reported that farmers perceived sheet erosion (68%) and gully erosion (60%) as the most frequently noted indicators of erosion severity. Several other researchers elsewhere have reported in Africa similar soil degradation (erosion) indicators even though there are some variability on the rank of their importance spatially and temporally (e.g., [ 74 – 76 ]).…”

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