Abstract
Agricultural intensification and expansion efforts aimed at feeding increasing populations have led to soil degradation globally. Due to their suitability for resource-constrained farmers, and potential positive impacts on agricultural land improvement, Soil and Water Conservation Practices (SWCPs) are recommended as a solution to soil degradation in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the adoption rates of SWCPs are low and farmers who adopt them do not adopt on time. There is a lag between the time when farmers first learn about SWCPs and the time of adoption. This study examines the factors influencing adoption lag for Soil and Water Conservation Practices among smallholder farmers in the Sio-Malaba Malakisi River Basin border region of Kenya and Uganda. We utilize data collected from 506 randomly selected households and use the duration analysis model to analyze the data. Results show that the average adoption lag of SWCPs in the study area was about 10 years. Further, reduction in adoption lag is associated with household size, number of accessible markets, access to credit, age of the household head, farm size owned, and tropical livestock units. On the other hand, access to off-farm income and household location in Uganda are associated with increased adoption lag of SWCPs. Participation in social groups, households being male-headed, and education of the household head showed mixed effects on adoption lag, depending on the SWCP of focus. Strengthening farmer social networks and access to credit and markets are recommended as possible interventions to promote the timely adoption of SWCPs.
Highlights
The world population growth rate is higher than the growth rate of food production.For Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the population is expected to more than double between 2019 and 2050 [1]
This study examines the factors influencing adoption lag for Soil and Water Conservation Practices among smallholder farmers in the Sio-Malaba Malakisi River Basin border region of Kenya and Uganda
This means that an average household in Sio-Malaba Malakisi River Basin (SMMRB) waits for about 10 years to adopt any of the 17 Soil and Water Conservation Practices (SWCPs)
Summary
The world population growth rate is higher than the growth rate of food production. For Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the population is expected to more than double between 2019 and 2050 [1]. Efforts to increase food production to match the needs of the growing population have been mainly through agricultural expansion and intensification, which have increased soil degradation rates [2]. In SSA, 70% of farmland is already degraded [3], which traps farmers in a cycle of land degradation effects. Enormous quantities of soils are lost inconspicuously but leave devastating effects on land quality and the environment; soil erosion may pass unseen in onetime rain yet the associated soil loss ranges between 35 to 75 t/ha/year [4,5]. In the catchment of the Lake Victoria basin, in the Eastern African Plateau of South-Eastern Uganda and Western
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