Abstract:
Agriculture and food security are the most critical agendas in the world. Land/soil fertility
management practice and climate change and their related socio-economic problems are
greatly affecting agricultural activities and food security in Ethiopia. The main objective of
this research is to evaluate the impacts of soil fertility management practices on livelihood of
rural households. In order to address these objectives, two kebeles from Eastern Dembia
Woreda, were selected purposefully and respondents were selected via stratified random
sampling technique. Data was collected by using direct observation, household questionnaire
survey and key informant interviews. The collected data was systematically analyzed by using
both qualitative and quantitative methods such as averages, standard deviations and
coefficient of variations and chi-square. In addition to this binary logistic model was used to
examine the major determinants of soil fertility management practices. Results confirm that,
green manuring, contour farming, traditional terraces, crop rotation, compost and mulching
were the most common soil fertility improvement practice. The chi- square test statistics
results reveal that there was no significance difference among each soil fertility management
practices. Lack of agricultural inputs, access to saving and credit association, shortage of
sufficient agricultural land, lack of strong administrative commitments farmers, attitude and
participation towards a new technologies and lack of practical training were the main
impacts in the adoption of soil fertility management practice. The finding of the study also
revealed that soil fertility management practices have a significant role in improving the
livelihood and soil fertility and land resource conservation. Key informant interview show
that the cause for fertility loss was due to poor agricultural practices and soil erosion. The
result also shows that the perception on soil fertility was significant across the study area.
This might be due to adopted and non-adopted soil fertility management practices by farmers.
Age of the household head, education, family size, land size, agricultural annual income and
number of livestock’s had a positively significant on adoption of green manure, terracing,
compost and mulching farm. This suggests that younger farmers had a higher probability of
adopting green manure, terracing, compost and mulching than older farmers.
