Investment in Land Conservation in the Ethiopian Highlands

Land degradation is a major problem undermining land productivity in the Ethiopian highlands. After a thorough review of the resource base, economic structure and production system as well as land degradation situation in Ethiopia and in the Amhara region; this book dwells with three empirical investigations. The first two empirical studies explore the factors affecting households' adoption decision to invest in land conservation and their decision on how much (intensity) to invest. While the first study focuses on plot-level decision to investment, the second study deals with decision at the household-level. Using the multinomial logistic model and 4,795 household-plot level observations, the third study examines the factors leading to differences in the households'preferences among the various forms of land conservation investments. In the first two studies, a double- hurdle (DH) model is used to analyze the panel data collected through a survey from 6408 plots and 1251 households in the Amhara region. The three empirical studies have generated results with significant ramifications to policy.