Agronomic management practices

Mixed cropping and crop rotation

Farmers were asked why they preferred mixed farming and crop rotation. About 93.2% and 83.7% of the farmers responded that they preferred mixed farming and crop rotation respectively on their farm. This is due to small landholding and large family size. Besides, mixed cropping is important for soil fertility. Finally, for those who have a small size of land, mixed cropping is important to get different types of crops at a time.

Contour Farming

Contour farming is a practice of cultivating the land along the contour line to reduce the runoff on a steep slope area. The study showed that this type of conservation practices were most often used by the farmers. From the sample household heads, 79.49% applied the contour farming with a mix of the other conservation measures including cut off drain, fallowing, waterways, and application of manure. While the farmer plows the land along the contour for the preparation of an appropriate seedbed for production, it serves the purpose of conserving the soil from erosion.

Fallowing

Most of the land under this treatment is highly degraded to the extent of almost reaching a point of no return or recover within a short time. It is a traditional practice of leaving the land out of production for 3-5 years to restore soil fertility and minimize soil loss. Generally, farmers leave the land or fallowing after all the soils removed from the land and the land is unable to produce under normal conditions, and only stones are found exposed on the land. Only 16.24% of the respondents apply fallow as a SWC measure. The farmers learned that through time traditional fallow periods have become very short and rare in the areas as a result of the high population pressure and associated low agricultural productivity.

Application of manure

Farmers didn’t apply manure on the soil, which was rather simply thrown near the homestead. During the survey, however, it was found out that since the last 4-5years the farmers used the manure to improve the fertility of soil. The main reason farmers shifted to this practice was attributed to the skyrocketing price of inorganic fertilizers which are unaffordable by the farmer. But currently, only 12.82% of the respondents practice this measure, as there is a very critical shortage of fuelwood and not much livestock in the area.
The practical observations, discussions, and interviews indicated that other management practices are going in the study area. Some of the farmers prepared compost from animal manures, plant leaves as well as crop residues to maintain soil fertility. But it needs knowledge and training to prepare effectively according to the respondents. Therefore it requires trainers who are ready and have a good knowledge regarding the instructions of better compost preparation. Some of the farmers used crop residues maintaining soil fertility through the shifting of animal feeding beds.
Factors that limit the implementation of land management practices
Different factors limit farmers to implement different land management practices in the study area (Table 4). The major factors affecting them were lack of training (78.1%), inefficient support from developmental agents (70.0%), limited support from district agricultural office (53.6%), and lack of good relationship between farmers which constitutes 43.1% respectively. According to the respondents, those farmers who lack trust in conservation measures poorly participate in the training, planning, and design of SWC program. Besides, due to inefficient support from developmental agents and limitations from the district agricultural office, farmers were less committed to practice SWC. According to Shiferaw and Holden (1998), the lack of attention on natural resources leads to drought and reduced household income, in turn, affect farmers that entirely engaged in agricultural activities in the Ethiopian highlands.
Institutional factors that influence SWC practice