Abstract:
The main objective of this study was to assess farmers’ perception about land
degradation and the practice of soil and water conservation measures in Central
Gondar: the case of East Belessa Woreda, Ethiopia. Different data analytical
techniques were applied by tabulation of percent and descriptive analysis. The result
indicates that majority of the respondents were aware of causes of land degradation by
indicating population growth, over cultivation, over grazing, soil erosion, rugged
topography, poor farming practices and poverty are pointed out by the farmers as the
main causes of land degradation respectively. Also, the results shows that most of the
respondents were aware of consequences of land degradation indicating loss of
agricultural productivity results from land degradation, followed by difficulty of
farming and loss in livestock productivity as consequence of land degradation. There
are respondents who were not aware of Desertification, migration and landlessness as
effects of land degradation specially aged farmers. But the implication is that correct
awareness about the problem of land degradation may be necessary but not sufficient
condition for farm-level to practice different effective activities of awareness in the
study area. Moreover, about 67.8% of the respondents indicated that land degradation
on their farm-field was Severe and mentioned that there is land degradation risk on
their farm-field. The result shows that major sources of information for farmers on the
conservation practices were kebele leaders and socially respected persons indicated by
83.9% of respondents as the most significant source of information and there is poor or
no contact with development agents of the study area. The conservation measures have
been influenced factors such as: -Age, sex, marital status, house-hold size, educational
qualification, farm-size (ha), farmers’ experience, distance from homestead and
household income factors were observed which obstacle to apply the SWC measures.
The findings also showed that there was a significant association between these factors.
As a result, higher educational level brings difference among farmers in practicing
structural soil and water conservation measures.
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The majority farmers have poor DAs contact, this contributes farmers did not work
properly SWC measures.
The farmers’ responses revealed that low and declining agricultural productivity is
mainly caused by land degradation problem and inadequate institutional supports on
land degradation in form of soil erosion is the main problems observed in the study
area.
