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Adoption intensity of soil and water conservation technologies: a case of South Western Uganda

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Abstract

Important signs of agricultural land quality deterioration are apparent in many countries, including declining yields and a switch to crops that demand fewer nutrients. This is despite efforts to curb land degradation rates through the years, including the attempt to promote use of soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies. This study was done in Kabale district in the South Western highlands of Uganda. Data analysis was done using cross-sectional data from 338 households. A Tobit model was used to identify the factors that influence intensity of adoption of different SWC technologies at parcel level. Results indicate that higher proportions of individual parcels having SWC technologies are associated with availability of labor, education level, and age of the household head, access to SWC related training, more tropical livestock units, neighboring parcels having SWC technologies on them, high fertility levels, location of the parcel, and expected access to parcels in a given period of time. Large size of operated land and long distances from parcels to the homesteads are associated with lower adoption intensity. The importance of each of these aspects varies depending on technologies of focus. Measures to improve the quality of training and extension services have been recommended. In addition, improvement of physical infrastructure such as roads and institutional infrastructure such as tenure security enhancement has been recommended.

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Notes

  1. NAADS is the main government body disseminating soil and water conservation technologies in Uganda.

  2. LC1 is the lowest administrative unit in Uganda.

  3. For purposes of comparison, and to check the robustness of the models, the same results are presented in Appendix, with the dependent variable excluding parcels without SWC technologies.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the bilateral cooperation between Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and Makerere University. We acknowledge the helpful comments on methodology by Professor Ulf Olsson of Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and Dr. Ainembabazi John Herbert of International Institute of Agriculture (IITA), Uganda.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agribusiness and Natural Resource Economics, School of Agricultural Sciences, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda

    Alice Turinawe & Johnny Mugisha

  2. Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P. O. Box 7013, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Lars Drake

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  1. Alice Turinawe
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  2. Lars Drake
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Correspondence to Alice Turinawe.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 4.

Table 4 Estimated parcel level Tobit model results for factors that influence proportion of the parcel area covered by SWC technologies (Without parcels that are not adopted on)
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Turinawe, A., Drake, L. & Mugisha, J. Adoption intensity of soil and water conservation technologies: a case of South Western Uganda. Environ Dev Sustain 17, 711–730 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-014-9570-5

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