Soil Conservation Practices: Evidence from Nigeria

The adoption of soil conservation practices is widely recognized as essential in improving soil fertility and in promoting climate-smart agriculture in general. Yet smallholders’ adoption of soil conservation practices in Sub-Saharan Africa has not been adequately documented especially in relation to interdependence and temporal dynamics of adoption decisions. In this paper we analyze the interdependence and temporal dynamics of smallholders’ adoption of soil conservation practices such as animal manure crop residue retention intercropping and crop rotation in northern Nigeria. Policy interventions to enhance the adoption of conservation practices should strongly leverage important factors such as contract farming crop-livestock integration and off-farm income diversification.