Income Diversification and Sustainable Land Management Practices among Rural Cassava-based Farmers in Imo State

Cost-benefit analysis of sustainable land and water management practices in selected highland water catchments of Kenya

The relationship between farmers' education and the adoption of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) practices remains unclear in the literature. Additionally, research on the mechanisms underlying this relationship remains limited. This study investigates how farmers' education influences SLM adoption intensity, focusing on mediating factors of trust in extension agents' (EAs') advice, risk aversion, and positive belief in SLM practices. Data from 480 farmers in southeast Nigeria were analyzed using multivariable regression analyzes and Baron and Kenny's mediation approach. We report two key findings: (1) education significantly increases SLM adoption intensity ( p < 0.05). A threshold effect is observed at the adoption of three or more practices ( p < 0.1), indicating that higher education levels are associated with a greater likelihood of adopting multiple SLM practices; (2) farmers' trust in EAs' advice and positive belief in SLM practices mediate the relationship between education and SLM adoption intensity ( p < 0.05), highlighting the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship. Overall, this study provides insights to guide policies for promoting SLM practices among rural farmers.

BackgroundSustainable land management is considered as one of the useful approaches to combat the threat of various forms of land degradation in Ethiopia. Despite this, there is scant information regarding households’ decision towards the implementation of sustainable land management practices. This paper, therefore, looks into the determinants for the continued use and choice of the sustainable land management practices by smallholder farmers and its productivity effect in three randomly chosen districts in Tigrai region, Ethiopia. The study uses data from household survey and key informant interviews. The paper employs a binary logit to analyze the determinants for the decision of continued use of sustainable land management practices, and a multivariate probit to analyze the simultaneous adoption decision of sustainable land management practices using cross sectional data collected from 230 randomly selected households. The impact of sustainable land management practices was also evaluated using propensity score matching.ResultsFarming techniques, wealth status, agro-ecological variations, and plot level characteristics were found to be associated with the implementation decision of sustainable land management practices by rural households. Besides, institutional supports and access to basic infrastructures influenced the overall continued use of sustainable land management practices and the preference of households toward these practices. The study also finds that the value of crop production of sustainable land management users was on average 77–100% higher than that of non-users.ConclusionsThe results of the current study confirm that the implementation of various sustainable land management practices are influenced by farming technologies deployed by rural households, agro-ecological variations, plot characteristics, and institutional supports. The findings also affirm that most of the sustainable land management practices are complementary to one another, and implementing two or more sustainable land management practices on a given plot is highly associated with higher value of crop production. Such complementarity highlights that the productivity effect of a given sustainable land management practice is enhanced by the use of the other ones.

Suboptimal land management practices are degrading soils and undermining food production. Sustainable land management (SLM) practices can improve soil and enhance yields. This study identifies variations in SLM uptake, characterising farmers most likely to use SLM practices, identifying when it makes economic sense for farmers to implement particular SLM practices and how long it takes before benefits exceed costs. Using questionnaire data from farmers in western Kenya, we undertake a cost–benefit analysis and analyse determinants of SLM practice use. SLM implementation varied between counties and SLM practice(s), with household and farm characteristics, and access to assets and advice, playing a key role. SLM practices with high upfront and maintenance costs (e.g., terraces and agroforestry) offer low benefit‐to‐cost ratios for individual farmers who must also wait many years to break even on their investments. Nevertheless, over the policy‐relevant time horizon considered (to 2030), Net present value can be positive. Simple SLM practices (manuring and intercropping) have low input costs and offer high benefit to cost ratios, providing a positive net present value up to 2030. Findings suggest that simple practices should be prioritised within policy to improve soil and increase yields. These should be supported by subsidies or other economic measures, facilitating uptake of practices such as agroforestry, which can provide wider societal benefits (e.g., improved water retention and carbon sequestration). Economic mechanisms could be augmented with support for agricultural innovation systems, improved monitoring of land management and yield relationships, and investment in climate and soil information services.

Smallholder farmers can adapt to climate variability and change through sustainable land management (SLM) practices that help to offset the negative impacts at farm level. However, use of these practices as adaptation strategy remains low in Ethiopia in general and the study sites in particular. This study aimed at examining the factors that determine farmers’ decision to use SLM measures and to quantify the impact of the practices on crop productivity at household and plot level. The study was based on household- and plot-level primary data and employed nearest-neighbor matching technique to quantify the impact of using the practices on value of production at household level and plot level. The results revealed that households that implemented SLM practices within the period (2004–2009) experienced a 24.1% higher value of production over non-users in 2016. Similarly, plots that received SLM measures within the period (2004–2009) experienced a 28.6% increase in value of production in 2016. The study also made further analysis at plot level using continuous treatment effects in order to take into account the number of years a plot has been under the practice. The result showed plots with SLM structure that are maintained for at least 6 years have a positive increase in value of production at the end of the 6th year, while those that received the practices recently or those that lacked continuous maintenance did not experience a statistically significant increase in value of production. The result also showed marginal benefit of sustaining the SLM practices increases over time at an increasing rate. The implication is that use of SLM measures and maintenance of the structures are crucial to reap significant benefits from the practices. Although value of production increases given the SLM practices, implementation is labor intensive and there is trade-off with other agricultural activities. Therefore, policy measures are required to incentivize implementation and maintenance of the SLM structures.

Adoption of multiple sustainable land management practices and its effects on productivity of smallholder maize farmers in Nigeria

A regional project as part of the Transboundary Agroecosystems Management Project (Kagera TAMP) was implemented in the Kagera River basin covering Burundi, Rwanda Tanzania and Uganda. The project was implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations with financial support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the governments of the riparian countries. In Tanzania, the project was conducted in four districts (Bukoba, Karagwe, Missenyi and Ngara) in the Kagera region. The project was implemented to address the causes of land degradation, restore ecosystem health and function and generate a range of global environmental benefits across the Kagera basin. In Tanzania, 10 micro-catchments were selected for project implementation involving 14,282 farmers covering about 3500 ha of land. The type, degree and direct and indirect causes of land degradation in the basin were assessed for different land use systems. Similarly, good practices of sustainable land management and their extent, effectiveness and trends were evaluated. A range of maps were developed and used to select land degradation priority areas for project intervention (hotspots). Successful sustainable land management (SLM) practices were introduced into the curriculum of the Farmer Field School (FFS), and a holistic catchment approach was adopted to address SLM in an integrated and multi-sectoral way. Through adopting this catchment approach (see also a long version of the definition on p. 15), drying water sources were regenerated that provide a reliable water supply for domestic and livestock use. Furthermore, training of extension staff and facilitators for the farmer field schools improved smallholder farmers’ knowledge and skills in applying sustainable land management practices. Cropland management increased the crop yield of bananas, maize, beans, and cassava from 20 % to sometimes more than 60 %. Planting of Cajanus cajan and other types of agroforestry technologies, application of farmyard manure and contouring were superior for improving soil quality and reducing soil erosion by more than 20 % of the covered area. Construction of physical contours and their strengthening with vegetative materials, such as fruit trees, grasses and shrubs, including Cajanus cajan, pineapples, vetiver and lemon grass, improved the soil quality. Improved soil quality also increased household income and improved household and community nutrition, which are short-term SLM benefits. These benefits were powerful incentives that led to wider adoption of SLM practices in all catchments. Soil organic carbon sequestration exceeded 20 %. Grassland carrying capacity was improved from 2.5 to 0.7, 5.0 to 0.4 and 3.3 to 0.7 ha/tropical livestock units (TLU). Grassland biodiversity regenerated with the reappearance of endangered trees, shrubs and grasses that have medicinal, socio-economic and cultural value. A total of 31 technical and three policy recommendations were developed and submitted to policy and decision makers for inclusion in development plans. The main challenges included the low priority given by national and local governments to land degradation issues and the lack of financing for and investment in upscaling of sustainable land management practices, limited attention given to land use conflicts and their management, and land tenure and addressing SLM on a sector basis instead of a multi-sector basis. With the benefits demonstrated in implementing the Kagera TAMP project, communities have been empowered to demand further improvement of their natural resources base.

Climate change is a major challenge impacting food security globally. Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries including Nigeria has experienced the negative effect of climate vagaries most especially on agricultural production, thus, leading to food insecurity. However, sustainable land management (SLM) practices have a huge potential to minimize the impacts on food security in a rapidly changing climate. This study estimates the determinants of the adoption of SLM practices and the impact of adoption on household food security among smallholder rice farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 120 respondents. A Poisson endogenous treatment (PET) model was employed to analyse the determinants of level of adoption of SLM and impact of SLM adoption on household food security level of smallholder rice farmers in the study area. To account for counterfactuals, a doubly-robust augmented-probability-weighted regression adjustment (APWRA) was also used. In the same vein, the study employed the marginal treatment effects (MTE) approach to estimate the treatment effects heterogeneity. The results showed that socio-economic factors greatly influenced the adoption of SLM practices, such as age and educational level of farmers. The effect of SLM adoption on food security of smallholder farmers was found to be improved when they used SLM package consisting of variety of practices, hence, SLM practices have the potential to alleviate food insecurity among rice farmers if well combined and used to a large extent. The study concluded that knowledge in form of formal education, some form of vocational training, and trainings to access weather information were key to influencing SLM adoption among smallholder farmers in the study area. The treatment effects on untreated (ATU) are lower than that of ATE and ATT, confirming the positive selection on unobserved gains. In particular, the ATU results show that for an average non-adopting household, adoption of SLM practices would significantly improve dietary diversity by about 27%. Farm-level policy efforts that aims to equip farmers through education, trainings and disseminating information on climate change would be a huge step towards the promotion of SLM practice which eventually leads to increased food security. The study recommended that continuous adoption and extensive use can be fostered by encouraging farmers to join a social organisation where related and relevant information on sustainable land management practices is shared through trained agricultural extension officers.

Sustainable land management (SLM) practices are often touted as a vehicle for simultaneously increasing agricultural productivity and food security in rural areas. In Eastern Zambia, numerous initiatives such as the Zambia Integrated Forest Landscape Project (ZIFLP) have been implemented. Yet, empirical data suggest relatively low levels of SLM uptake in the smallholder farming sector. Therefore, the broad objective of this study was to estimate the relationship between smallholder farmer awareness of SLM technologies and land allocated to SLM at the farm level. We hypothesized the following: H1: Increased farmer awareness of SLM practices leads to more land allocated to SLM activities in Zambia’s Eastern Province; and H2: Adoption of specific SLM practices influences the extent of land allocated to SLM. Using an intra-household cross-sectional survey, data were collected from 761 randomly selected households from 11 chiefdoms of the Eastern Province. The Heckman selection procedure was used to analyze the study’s overarching hypothesis. Findings showed that farmers were generally conversant with SLM as a construct (>90%), with choices being influenced by gender. Conservation agriculture in the form of crop rotations, use of manure, mixed cropping, tree planting, and minimum tillage methods were the most commonly known SLM technologies among farmers. Findings also indicated that awareness is an important antecedent in the use of SLM practices (χ2 = 76.6, p = 0.00), with greater access to extension being positively associated with farmer awareness (p < 0.05). The land allotted to SLM hinged on crop diversity, ownership of different types of livestock, and access to agricultural extension. These findings suggest that long-term commitments to training farmers in SLM is critical. This will be achieved when there is coherence in the information on SLM being given to farmers by all the actors working in the region.

Both customary and statutory land rights characterize Land tenure system in Liberia. The land tenure system practiced in Liberia is known to create confusion and insecurity among local communities regarding land ownership and usage. Despite the importance of land tenure in shaping land use practices, there is limited research on how land tenure systems on sustainable land management in Liberia. This research investigates the impact of the land tenure system on sustainable land management in the Kpatawee clan, Suakoko District, Bong County, Liberia. This research utilized both primary and secondary data sources for the study. The study adopted the random sampling technique for data collection with the targeted sample size of 100 smallholder farmers in the study area. The customary land tenure system was found to be the most dominant tenure system practices in the study area. About 93% of the respondents stated that a secure land tenure system encourages them to undertake long-term investment. In addition, crop rotation and inter-cropping were the commonly used sustainable land management practiced technique adopted in the study area. The study further revealed that smallholder farmers in the Kpatawee clan face challenges such as insecure land rights, limited access to resources, and conflicting land use practices, which hinder the adoption of sustainable land management practices. Consequently, land insecurity, lack of transparency, and weak institutional capacity limit the potential for sustainable land management practices in the study area. The study concludes that land tenure system security strengthens local institutions and supports sustainable land management practice. It is also concluded that improving inclusivity and transparency of land rights are critical for achieving sustainable land management goals in the study area and Liberia in general.

Effects of land use and sustainable land management practices on runoff and soil loss in the Upper Blue Nile basin, Ethiopia

Soil degradation has been a major environmental and agricultural challenge in Ethiopia in general and in the study area in particular. Recently, several governmental and nongovernmental organizations have made efforts to reduce the problem and improve the productivity of land through sustainable land management (SLM) practices. The main objective of this study was to investigate the impact of sustainable land management practices on soil condition and landscape greenness in the Jimma Arjo District, Southwestern Ethiopia. The impact of SLM practices on soil condition was examined by collecting twenty-eight (28) composite and core (28) soil samples from treated (14) and nontreated (14) lands. Landsat satellite images of 2012 and 2022 were used to detect changes in landscape greenness using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). ArcGIS® 10.3, ERDAS® 2014, and Microsoft Excel software packages were used for analysis. The significance test was performed using a one-way ANOVA. The result showed a significant difference in soil physiochemical properties (soil texture, soil pH, soil organic carbon, soil organic matter, total nitrogen, and available phosphorous and calcium) between treated and nontreated lands (P<0.01). However, the landscape greenness result shows that the lowest NDVI value in the SLM-treated kebele during 2012 was −0.15 but increased to 0.09 in 2022. Similarly, the highest value was found to be 0.41 in 2012 and the value rose to 0.53 in 2022. It is concluded that sustainable land management practices implemented in the area have resulted in an important positive effect on improving the soil condition and landscape greenness. Hence, strengthening and scaling up SLM practices and continuous maintenance are advisable for better results in land productivity and livelihood improvement.

Using a household and plot‐level survey conducted in Ethiopia, this study analyses the difference in farmers' adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) practices between their rainfed and irrigated plots. The paper also investigates the varying influence of different types of irrigation water management systems and associated irrigation technologies on the adoption of SLM practices in irrigated plots. After controlling for heterogeneity among different irrigation water management systems and technologies, we found that access to irrigation play major role in enhancing farmers' motivation to adopt more SLM practices. Furthermore, the combined effect of irrigation water management system and irrigation technology on type and number of SLM practices adopted is quite varied and very significant. The evidence highlights that farmers adopt more SLM practices in their plots with pump irrigation compared with those plots where gravity irrigation is applied because pump irrigation systems enhance complementarities with SLM practices. Finally, the findings underscore that the type of irrigation water management and the irrigation technology applied play an important role in restoring degraded lands and maintaining soil fertility, even when farmers' adoption of irrigation was not explicitly triggered by concerns for soil health.

Synergizing global tools to monitor progress towards land degradation neutrality: Trends.Earth and the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies sustainable land management database

Soil fertility in mixed crop-livestock farming systems of Punjab, Pakistan: The role of institutional factors and sustainable land management practices