Determinants of Crop Land Management Practices: The Case of North Gondar Zone, North West Ethiopia

Land management problems like soil erosion; overgrazing and deforestation have steadily increased in Ethiopia including the study area North Gondar Zone. Thus, the main objective of this study is to assess the determinants of crop land management practices in north Gondar zone. Both qualitative and quantitative types of data were collected from primary and secondary sources. In this study, to get representative sample from different agro ecologies a stratified simple random sampling technique was employed to select sample household heads. Finally, a total of 120 household heads were drawn through simple random sampling technique proportionally to size form the sample kebeles. To analyze the determinants of land management practices multinomial logit model was used. The findings of this study indicated that from the total variables included in the model only six variables are found to significantly affect the choice of crop land management strategies. The significant variables include age of the household head, education level, access to mass media, amount of income, farm distance and the frequency of extension contact. Thus, any concerned bodies should strengthen rural households’ mass media coverage and advisory services.