Indigenous Knowledge for Land Conservation and Adoption of Agroforestry Technologies in The Highlands of South Western, Uganda

Abstract

Soil erosion is a major agricultural and environmental problem in the highlands of southwest Uganda. Farmers have used their indigenous knowledge to solve the problem, however, information regarding these indigenous knowledge systems and socio-economic factors that influence the land conservation strategies is still scanty. A study was conducted in Muko and Bubare sub-county, Kabale district between November 2005 and July 2006, to investigate the role of indigenous knowledge in land conservation and adoption of agroforestry technologies in the highlands of south western Uganda. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 60 households selected using a systematic purposive sampling procedure. Based on the logistic regression analysis, the indigenous knowledge and household socio-economic factors that influence the adoption of agroforestry technologies include: farmer’s age, education level, frequency of contact with extension service provides, size of family productive labour force, and gender of the farmer. Based on their indigenous knowledge, the local farmers adopted different structural measures such as terraced farming, construction of waterways, check dams, retention walls, and gull control. Similarly, they adopted biological measures including alley cropping, bamboo plantation in gullies, mulching and; use of organic and inorganic fertilizers to control land degradation.

Keywords: Agroforestry, farmers, land degradation, socio-economic factors.