THE IMPACT OF POVERTY, TENURE SECURITY AND RISK ON SUSTAINABLE LAND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN NORTH CENTRAL ETHIOPIA: ANALYSIS ACROSS THREE AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ZONES

Designing appropriate policies and strategies in order to enhance adoption of sustainable land management strategies requires proper understanding and thorough analysis of major triggering factors. Given high population pressure, degrading farmlands and poverty, sustainable land management strategies become essential tools not only to enhance soil fertility but also to increase farmland productivity on a long-term basis. Although several studies have been conducted, our knowledge of major triggering factors of poor level of land management across different farming systems in Ethiopia is still inadequate. Thus, using survey data from 254 randomly selected farmers from north central areas of Ethiopia, this study examined the impact of poverty, entitlement failures and risk on adoption of land management strategies. Multinomial logit model was used for the analysis. Results reveal that human (population pressure, education), physical (livestock, land) and financial (credit, market access) assets positively and significantly affect adoption of land management strategies, whereas poverty, tenure insecurity and risk have a negative and significant impact. The findings suggest that future endeavors should focus on targeting poverty, land tenure insecurity, helping farmers build assets and envisaging risk-management strategies in order to mitigate land degradation and improve productivity gains.