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Volume 59, Issue 330, June 2023

Impact of rural land certification on farmers’ investment for soil and water conservation activities in Soddo Zuriya Woreda, Southern Ethiopia

Bisrat Hailemichael, Melaku Bekele, Teshome Tamirat

Ethiopian Forestry Development, Natural resources and environmental studies, Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources Hawassa University, Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Land degradation is severe phenomena threatening economic development in Ethiopia due to lack of feasible land uses policy and plan. Land is owned by government and its people in whom tenure insecurity resulted into frequent land redistribution, eviction from holdings and limited land rights during the past regimes. Lack of tenure security impacted the farmers’ investment for land management practices. This study aimed at investigating the impact of rural land registration and certification program on farmers’ investment for soil and land management practices. A total of 149 households were selected from three Kebeles based on probability proportional to sample size determination for data collection. Quantitative data were collected from sampled households using structured questionnaire whereas the qualitative data were generated from focus group discussions, key informants’ interviews and field observation. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data analyses. The result showed that in Soddo area the gender imbalance in land ownership has significant impact contributing to the investment on the soil and water conservation. The employment and adoption of both physical and biological measures of soil and water conservation practices directly linked with the gender-based land ownership which also is related to the difference on physical labor and power of men and women. The land ownership modality and gender based and joint land certification holding is quite important for the proper employment of family labor. The adoption and non-adoption of both physical soil and water conservation activities is not related with the family size rather it is impacted by the land size owned by the house holds. However, the adoption and non- adoption of biological soil and water conservation activities is related with the mean family size. Both female and male family members are responsible and create assurance of joint land certification for better employment of soil and water conservation practices and adoption of land management practices. Rural land certification and registration program has initiated the rural community for better investment in both physical and biological soil and water conservation activities basically on the technologies of drainage ditches, soil bund, contour sloughing, distribution of manure, application of compost, application of inorganic fertilizer, and planting of trees has brought significant impact on land investment. The proportion of the house hold respondents who employed all technologies of biological and physical soil and water conservation measures are significantly higher after the land certification program than before. The chi-square result (χ2=29.717 and P< 0.01) shows there was statistically high significant difference before and after land certification. Thus, land tenure security, demographic, economic and communication variables of the households should give more emphasis making interventions in land management at farm level. Findings of the study indicated the land certification program significantly impacted the rate of investment on soil and water conservation activities in which small holder land ownership has proved better land management than communal land ownership as tenure security.

Keywords: Certification, Land, Registration, Soil and Water Conservation and Tenure Security