Conservation farming on steep lands - USAid

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 85
Table 4. Perceived causes of soil eroslon (by percentage of cases).
- TALD Du Tai Mae Chaem Mae Ss Ban Pong Projact Control
(N = 36) (N = 37) (N = 33) (N = 47) (N = 32) (115) (68)
.-
Heavy rainfall 92 100 100 100 100 97 100
Bare soil or
lack of cover 25 59 58 51 34 45 47
Steep slopes 56 57 70 51 63 59 60
a! Soil types 22 19 24 32 34 26 27
Farming
methods 8 11 33 28 13 23 12
Cutting tr6es
and plants 25 51 70 38 47 44 49
Other 8 0 0 0 9 2 4
Causes
mentioned 2.4 3.0 3.6 2.8 3.0 2.9 3.0
Table 5. Source of soil erosion knowledge (by percentage of cases).
How Did You Leern About Erosion?
Direct From From TV Project Other
Group Observation Neighbors or Radio or Government Source
TALD 8 1 19 3 58 0
Di Tai' 97 8 8 3 0
Mae Chaem 100 2 1 0 6 1 3
Mae Sa 100 10 4 39 0
- Ban Pong' 94 19 6 3 6
Project 94 16 3 51 1
'Control 96 13 7 4 3
ect has attempted to educate farmers against forest cutting and burning.
Table 4 also shows that only a minority of farmers recognize that soil type
or <strong>farming</strong> methods affect erosion, with highland groups having slightly
better scores. The last two columns of table 4 show that project and control
scores were almost identica.1, indicating that knowledge of soil erosion
causes was not improved substantially by project participation.
To identify how best to disseminate information on soil erosion, farmers
were asked: "Where did you learn about soil erosion?" (Table 5). By far
the leading source of knowledge about erosion was direct observation: 9
of 10 farmers reported seeing soil moving in their fields. Only one respondent
in six @lined erosion information from friends and neighbors. A significant
proportion of project participants cited project or government sources
of eroslon information. In contrast, this proportion was nearly nil in control
groups. Radio and television provided limited erosion information in
211 locations.