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Adoption of soil and water conservation practices among smallholder farmers in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia

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Abstract

Soil erosion poses a major threat to Ethiopia particularly in Somali Regional State, where the implementation of soil and water practices has been poorly implemented. This study was aimed to assess Soil and Water Conservation Adoption Among Smallholder Farmers: Evidence from Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. The study was applied cross sectional mixed research approach using both qualitative and quantitative data from 203 randomly selected household heads. Binary logistics regression model was employed to analyze factors affecting adoption of soil and water conservation practices in study area. The results indicated that 51.72% of household heads had were adopted SWC practices, while 48.28% were not adopted. Determinant factors such as education level, farm experience, farm slope, institutional services and land cover had a positive and significant correction with adoption of SWC practices. Conversely, gender and farm size showed a negative and significant relationship. Finally, the study concluded that smallholder’s farmer’s adoption with SWC practices were influenced by biophysical, socioeconomic and institutional determinants which needs an intensive consideration for full implementation of SWC practices among household heads. Therefore, the policies, development agencies, NGOs and academicians must account for these influential variables to effectively encourage and support the adoptions of SWC practices in study area.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request from the corresponding author.

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Funding

This work was funded by Haramaya University, which is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resource Management, College of Dry-land Agriculture, Jigjiga University, P.O. Box 1020, Jigjiga, Ethiopia

    Mohammed Bule Sametar

  2. Department of Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, College of Dry-land Agriculture, Jigjiga University, P.O. Box 1020, Jigjiga, Ethiopia

    Maslah Mahamed Duale

Authors

  1. Mohammed Bule Sametar
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  2. Maslah Mahamed Duale
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Contributions

Mohammed Bule Sametar and Maslah Mahamed Duale: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. Both authors contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to
Maslah Mahamed Duale.

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Sametar, M.B., Duale, M.M. Adoption of soil and water conservation practices among smallholder farmers in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-42099-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-42099-6

Keywords

  • Adoption
  • Binary logit model
  • Determinant
  • Household
  • Shabeley district
  • Soil erosion
  • Soil and water conservation

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