Farmers’ preferences for soil conservation measures in Southern Ethiopia: Plot-level discrete choice experiment

Abstract

This study assesses farmers' preferences for the adoption of grass strips as cropland conservation measures and explores the effects of information on their preferences. We further analyze these preferences for plots with varying levels of tenure security and erosion vulnerability. Using survey data from Southern Ethiopia, a plot-level discrete choice experiment in two rounds that includes a video-based information treatment in a within-subject design is conducted. The findings show that farmers prefer to adopt grass strips with a high conservation potential, that can be used as feedstock and that help to stabilize physical structures or delineate plot boundaries. In addition, information transfer increases preferences for adopting grass strips with not only a high conservation potential but also a medium conservation potential. The effects of the information transfer on preferences are found to be heterogeneous and vary with plot characteristics. Under well-defined property rights, farmers prefer to adopt the grass strips for stabilizing physical structures, conserving their cropland against environmental risk or boundary delineation. However, under weak tenure security, they prefer to plant grass strips only for boundary delineation to reduce the institutional risk of losing cropland, but this preference was only observed after information provision. These findings highlight the importance of designing and implementing context-specific agricultural information dissemination systems and that well-defined land rights increase the adoption of land conservation technology in the global south.