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Farmers’ Perceptions of Land Degradation and Their Investments in Land Management: A Case Study in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

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Abstract

To combat land degradation in the Central Rift Valley (CRV) of Ethiopia, farmers are of crucial importance. If farmers perceive land degradation as a problem, the chance that they invest in land management measures will be enhanced. This study presents farmers’ perceptions of land degradation and their investments in land management, and to what extent the latter are influenced by these perceptions. Water erosion and fertility depletion are taken as main indicators of land degradation, and the results show that farmers perceive an increase in both indicators over the last decade. They are aware of it and consider it as a problem. Nevertheless, farmers’ investments to control water erosion and soil fertility depletion are very limited in the CRV. Results also show that farmers’ awareness of both water erosion and soil fertility decline as a problem is not significantly associated with their investments in land management. Hence, even farmers who perceive land degradation on their fields and are concerned about its increase over the last decade do not significantly invest more in water erosion and soil fertility control measures than farmers who do not perceive these phenomena. Further research is needed to assess which other factors might influence farmers’ investments in land management, especially factors related to socioeconomic characteristics of farm households and plot characteristics which were not addressed by this study.

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Notes

  1. Kebele is the lowest level administrative unit in Ethiopia.

  2. Worde is the next highest-level local administrative unit above the kebele.

  3. The Enset plant, also called “‘false banana,” is a giant herbaceous tree which may grow up to 13 m high and a diameter of 2 m or more. It is a single-stemmed tree consisting of an above-ground pseudo stem made from overlapping leaf sheaths, a short, compact, and fleshy underground stem called a “corm,” and conspicuously large leaves.

  4. Chat is an evergreen tree cultivated for the production of fresh leaves that are chewed for their stimulant properties.

  5. Tropical livestock units (1 TLU = 250 kg live weight). Different farm animals have different conversion factor to TLU. Accordingly, oxen/bulls = 1.1 TLU, cows/horses/mule = 0.8 TLU, donkey = 0.65 TLU, heifer = 0.36 TLU, calf = 0.2, chicken = 0.01 TLU, and sheep/goat = 0.09 TLU (Sharp 2003).

  6. Food insecure and food secure kebeles are classified as such by the local administration (wereda). A kebele is said to be food secure if most households in that particular kebele could feed themselves without any food-aid or safety net program. Basically, these kebeles are located in the enset-based farming system.

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Acknowledgments

We are deeply indebted to the partnership programme of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Wageningen University and Research Centre on Globalization and sustainable rural development for financing this research as part of the project “Improving livelihoods and resource management in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia.” We thank the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research for facilitating this study. We also wish to thank farmers in the study area for their collaboration in interviews and participation in focus group discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, P.O. Box 2003, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Zenebe Adimassu & Chilot Yirga

  2. Land Degradation and Development, Wageningen University, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Zenebe Adimassu, Aad Kessler & Leo Stroosnijder

Authors
  1. Zenebe Adimassu
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  2. Aad Kessler
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  3. Chilot Yirga
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  4. Leo Stroosnijder
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Correspondence to Zenebe Adimassu.

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Adimassu, Z., Kessler, A., Yirga, C. et al. Farmers’ Perceptions of Land Degradation and Their Investments in Land Management: A Case Study in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Environmental Management 51, 989–998 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0030-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0030-z

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