Factors Influencing Soil Erosion Control Practices Adoption in Centre of the Republic of Benin: Use of Multinomial Logistic

Abstract

Water erosion threatens large agricultural areas in Benin. This study dealing with the effect of personal household’s attributes and field physical characteristics on erosion control practices was carried out in the watershed of Zou. A total of 390 farmers distributed in six were randomly sampled. Questionnaires, interview, focus group discussion and field observation were used as the main data collection technics. It allowed to collect sociodemographic and institutional characteristics and have a view on the effectiveness of the erosion control practices adoption. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistic and logistic regression. Ridging parallel to the slope (40.77% in adoption); mulching (11.03% in adoption); isohypse ridging (16.67% in adoption) and no-tillage (8.46 in adoption) were inventoried as soil erosion control practices on the watershed. It appears that that the household’s sociodemographic and institutional attributes and field physical characteristics significantly affected the adoption of the inventoried water erosion control practices. Sex, education, farmer’s organization membership, landownerships, access to agricultural advice service, position of the field on the toposequence and presence of water stream significantly influenced the soil erosion control practices adopted on the watershed. The results of this study showing that set of factor sway farmers to adopt soil erosion control practices can help policy makers to upscale the adoption of the practices and soil scientists to orient their research programs on erosion control practices.