Determinants of Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Soil Conservation Practices in Jinga Bilu Kebele Gololcha Woreda

Abstract

This study aimed at identifying determinants of farmer’s willingness to participate in soil conservation practice and assessing effects of soil erosion and use of soil conservation practice in the society. Data were collected through structured interview from 75 farmers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyzsis the data, Binary logit model was employed to analyze determinants of farmers’ willingness to participate in soil conservation practices. Eight explanatory variables were included in the model of which four were significant at less than 10% probability levels. The significant variables were age of household head; extension service, technological awareness, and consumer-worker ratio are some of the variables that have significant effect on WTP.specifically, the age of the household have a negative and significant impact on farmers’ willingness to participate in soil conservation practices. The assistance of extension agent was affect positively and significantly, the farmers’ willingness to participate in soil conservation practices. The dependency ratio also affects negatively and significantly, willingness to participate in soil conservation that is as the number of consumer-worker increases the willingness to participate decrease. Policy makers and government should encourage and provide technical advice to farmers who are practicing soil conservation at their own initiative and using their indigenous knowledge. Researchers should also develop appropriate soil conservation technologies for each particular situation, incorporating farmers’ indigenous knowledge. More specifically, as farmers are well adapted to the local ecology and the farming systems, incorporating their indigenous practices would increase acceptability and sustainability of soil conservation Keywords : willingness to participate, soil conservation, participation DOI : 10.7176/JEES/9-1-01