Soil Conservation Methods in Goromti Watershed, Central Ethiopia

Land degradation is one of the major challenges in agricultural production in many parts of the world, especially in developing nations, such as Ethiopia. A number of soil and water conservation methods were introduced to combat land degradation since 1970s, but adoption of these practices remains below expectations. Factors such as slope of the area, contact with extension workers, tenure status, age, size of house hold and training influenced farmers to adopt soil and water conservation methods. Opportunities related to adopted methods of soil conservation are effective in addressing on farm flooding, increased productivity and reduced soil erosion. Despite the benefits the study also revealed that some challenges which are related to adopted methods they took and reduced plot size, poor design, need more labor and lack of incentives. Thus, the origin of the hurdles ranges from intellectual, financial, biophysical and technical, infrastructural issues. Knowing the respective bottlenecks and problems allows developing strategies to overcome the problems of soil and water conservation seriously and genuinely.