AN ASSESSMENT OF FARMERS’ PERCEPTION TOWARDS SOIL EROSION AND SOIL CONSERVATION PRACTICE: THE CASE OF BONKE WOREDA, SNNPR, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Soil is an important resource which nourishes and provides with required needs for the nature. However, nowadays in spite of its importance soil erosion is one of the most serious problems affecting the wellbeing of the human beings and disturbing the environmental sustainability and Lack of appreciating farmers’ knowledge and their perceptions of soil erosion and soil conservation measures was the reason for low adoption of recommended technologies. This research was carried out to evaluate farmers’ perceptions of soil erosion and their knowledge of the existing soil and conservation measures in Bonke Woreda of the Gamo Zone. The objective of this study was to assess the farmers’ perception on soil ero-sion, to evaluate farmers’ perception on soil conservation measures, to explain factors that influence farmers’ use of soil conservation measures. To achieve the objective of the study, the researcher used 140 respondents for questionnaires, 21 for focused group discussion, and 19 for key informant interviews, totally180 sample house hold heads respondents were taken from three purposively selected kebeles of Bonke Woreda, SNNPR, Ethiopia. The primary data was collected using through questionnaires, key informant interview, focused group discussion and field observation. Secondary data was also collected from both pub-lished and unpublished sources. The data gathered from different corners was analyzed based on the adopted quantitative and qualitative methods of descriptive statistical tech-niques byusing the frequencies and percentiles. The study findings revealed that as a result, the impacts of soil erosion have major implications for the society from an economic, social and environmental perspective. Hence, soil erosion is a serious problem that facing the livelihood of the area which was causing due to naturally occurring circumstances, basi-cally the influential day to day human activities, and the majority of arable lands were disintegrated and forced to reduce farmland sizes, decreasing agricultural yields and loss of soil fertility are among its consequences. To succeed in dealing and controlling the prob-lem of soil erosion, the planning, designing traditional and newly introduced conservation measures have taken place. However, farmers’ decision and soil conservation was affect-ing by a number of factors; steepness of topography, lack of technical support and lack of money were among it. To address these potential factors the researcher comes up withrecommendations on a broader picture.