Determinants of Sustainable Land Management: Focusing on Land Certification and Landholding Size:Case of DunaDistrict, HadiyaZone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Land tenure insecurity, poor extension services, physical land characteristics, demographic and institutional factors contributed to poor land management. This study was conducted to assess determinants of sustainable land management: focusing on land certification and land size in Duna District; Hadiya Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Systematic random sampling technique was used and selects 144 households for questionnaire.About 18 key informants and 8 focus group discussion members were selected purposively. The chi-square (χ2) analysis was used to test the relationship between land certification and landholding sizewith land management practices.The binary logistic regression analysis was employedtoidentify factors influencing land management practices.The result showed that farmers’ confidence on tenure security was increased after certification and the majorities (92%) of the farmers feel more secured on land rights. Land certification increases land management practices (91%), reduce boarder conflicts (82%), promote gender equality (87%) and used as collateral to get farm inputs (95%).As shown fromχ2 analysis, a significant and positive relation was found between land certification and land management practices. Similar resultfromχ2 indicatesthat land management practices weresignificantlyinfluenced by land size and decrease as land size becoming small (p<0.05) except crop rotation and organic manure application.As shown from binary logit regression analysis, land certification, land size and education level(p<0.05), farmers’ contact with extension agents,farmland slope, farmers’ perception of land degradation and farming experiences were significantly and positively determine land management practices(p<0.1)while farmland distance negatively(p<0.05).Therefore,the government should expand land certification in study area to increaseland tenuresecurity, develop cadastral mapping system to update landregistration records, provide training for extension planners and create awareness to farmers to increase sustainable land use.