Demographic and Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Respondents

The perception of farmers on the application of SWC and management practices was influenced by different factors (Table 2). These factors include age, household size, and income, educational status of farmers, landholding size, farmers’ experience. Besides, lack of information on benefit and cost of SWC measures, distance from the homestead, level of contact with developmental agents (DA’s), lack of training on conservation techniques have significant influences on practicing SWC measures.

Age of household heads

The results in Table 2, showed about 4.27% of household heads were less than 18 years old, about 69.23% were between 18-49 years old and 26.5 % were above 50 years old. The average age of participated farmers was 33, with a minimum age of 20 years and a maximum of 80 years. The study revealed that age had a significant (p<0.001) effect on perception and adoption of SWC practices. Households argued that older farmers couldn’t make activities that require hard work like soil bund and stone terracing. Thus, the aged farmers have trouble with practicing SWC in their fields. On the other hand, aged persons practice less labor demanding technologies such as simple cutoff drains, contour plowing, planting grasses, and use of other agronomic conservation measures. This supports the works of Taye (2006) and Bekele and Drake ( 2003) who stated that younger farmers with longer planning horizons are likely to invest more in SWC practices as compared to aged farmers. According to Okoba (2005), older members of households, having longterm interaction with their environment were able to compare past and present production trends when describing the patterns of land degradation.
Sex
As SWC practices is aimed at combating land degradation, it must be implemented on both sexes of a community. As indicated in Table 2, there was a significant (p<0.001) difference in practicing SWC measures due to sex. It was found that 85.5% of the households were males farmers and 14.5% were female farmers. Most of the female farmers had less interest to construct SWC practices, but they need help from elsewhere. As a result, the majority of female farmers apply less SWC measures in their farmland. Some practice cutoff drains and waterways. Besides, 25% of females responded that they have much workload and home care despite involvement in farm activities that need much effort and investment to increase production. The adoption of SWC practices is influenced by the sex of household head (Asfaw and Neka, 2017).
Marital status
The marital status of respondents (Table 2) showed that about 86.32% of the respondents were married while, 4.27% of the populations were unmarried, 1.7% were divorced and, 7.69% of the populations were widowed. It indicated that marital status significantly (p<0.05) affected the perception and adoption of SWC practices. The majority of the households responded that the SWC practices were left for married household heads. Marital status also had an implication on the size and structure of families in a household and hence on practicing SWC measures (Asfaw and Neka, 2017).
Household size
The household size is one of the determinant factors which affected SWC practices. The chi-square test results (Table 2) indicated that there is a significant (p<0.05) relationship between household size and SWC measures. The household with less than 4 members make up 23%, households while, with 5-8 members constitute 52.99%; households with 9-10 make up 14.95% and households above11 constitute the remaining 5.98%. The sample survey of households of the district implies that many rural households (85 percent) had at least 5 members per household head.
The study results revealed that the majority of respondents agreed on having a large number of children or a large family size is important. The size of family members can be seen from two different angles. The first when there is a large family size in which the majority of family members are capable of working and it is very important for practicing SWC measures. On the other hand, having a small number of children requires additional labor to construct and maintain SWC measures and as the result of the shortage of working forces, they reject SWC measures. This is in with the findings of Drake (2003) in eastern Ethiopia.

Educational level

The literacy level of farmers brought differences in awareness about SWC practices and its effect on land degradation. Educational level significantly (p<0.05) affected the perception and adoption of SWC practices. The result in Table 2, indicated that 52.14% of the respondents were illiterate, 37.60% of the respondents attended primary school and, about 10.26% of respondents attended secondary school (9-12) and above. Level of education is one of the demographic features of households that play a crucial role to increase farmers knowledge about land management practice and give awareness to the causes and consequences of land degradation. As the educational status of a household head increases, it is assumed to increase the transfer of relevant information. This finding is supported by Shibru (2003) who reported education enables farmers to tackle land degradation using various ways of SWC practices.

Household incomes

The data given in Table 2, indicated the percentage distribution sample household heads by income. Accordingly, about 57.26 %t of the respondents had a mean annual income of less than 25,000 birr and about 38.46.5% of respondents had a mean annual income between 25,000 to 35,000 birr. While about 4.27% of the respondents had a mean annual income of 35,000 to 55,000 birr.
This indicated that even the construction of a single soil bund can cost much money and needs a large number of labor forces and give a better role for large family members.
The chi-square result (Table 2) revealed that there is a significant (p<0.05) relationship between income and conservation practices. According to the respondents, income is one of the factors which affect soil and conservation practices. Accordingly, farmers who faced labor shortage and no money to pay, reject the construction of physical SWC measures, and then shifted their decisions towards the practice of biological SWC measures that might not compensate the benefit of SWC measures in controlling soil loss. This indicated that even the construction of a single soil bund can cost much money and needs a large number of labor forces and give a better role for large family members. This implied that there was a lack of interest in SWC measures when there is a lack of money and a shortage of labor.

Landholding size

Land size is an important factor that affects the practice of SWC measures. The landholding of farmers in the study area varied from less than 0.25 hectares to more than 2 hectares with an average holding of 0.43 hectares per household. As it can be seen from Table 2, the households with less than 0.5 hectares make up to 65.81%, households with 0.51 hectare to 1.0 ha constitute 24.79% and households with 1.01 hectare to 1.50 hectare make up 4.27%. The household more than 2 hectares constitute 5.13%. Pressure on land at the household level has been increasing as long as the population growth is increasing.
Land size and practices of SWC measures have a significant relationship. According to the respondents, those farmers having a large size of farmland practice SWC measures whereas those with small size of farms have negative attitudes towards practicing SWC measures (Table 2). These farmers lack trust in SWC measures as they have poorly participated in the planning and designing of the SWC program. Hence, farmers in the study area perceived to reject SWC methods because more than half of the farmers had land size below half hectares. The most important reason is those with small land size believe establishing conservation methods occupy space and diminish cultivated land. This intention of farmers was supported by the finding of Assefa (2009). Constructing soil bunds causes for a decrease in farmland size (Shiferaw and Holden, 1998).
Farming Experience
There has been little information on the role of experience or years farming in the literature to date. About 62% of participants responded that when the farming years increase the implementation of SWC measures increased as well. farming years are positively related to the adoption of conservation practices. Norris (1987) found that farmers with more experience were more likely to adhere to SWC practices.

Distance from homestead

Distance from cultivation land to homestead influence the practice of SWC measures. The chi-square test result indicated that there is a significant relationship between distance from the homestead and practicing SWC measures. It was observed that the majority of the respondents’ farmland was far from their homestead. Only 11.11% and 29.06% of the respondents had cultivation land near and moderate to their residence respectively, and 59.83% of respondents’ cultivation land was far from their residence. As the distance of farmland increases from farmers’ homes, the probability of adopting SWC practices decreases (Asfaw and Neka, 2017).
The feasible explanation is that the nearer the cultivation fields to the homestead, the frequent the land management and SWC practices (Assefa, 2009). When runoff comes, farmers are ready to protect the soil and maintain the damaged bunds and check dams in the nearer fields. However, farmers having land far from their residence usually do not visit their cultivation field regularly except during harvesting and planting season. Thus, if the farm field is located near the farmhouse, it becomes easier to manage and receives better attention (Chomba, 2004).