Abstract

Natural resources have been degrading owing to unwise agricultural activities leading to declining agricultural production and productivity that in turn deteriorating people livelihood in many developing countries including Ethiopia. Therefore, watershed management practices become the key approach to minimize loss of the natural resources, rehabilitate degrading environment and thereby improve livelihood of the community. The Ethiopian government has been implementing watershed management intervention with due focus on soil and water conservation (SWC) measures using community campaign. This study examined the impacts of watershed management practices on smallholder farmers’ livelihood with Hidabu Abote Woreda, North Shewa, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia as case study. A combination of qualitative and quantitative data were generated through household survey, key informant interviews, focuses group discussion and observation. The quantitative data were generated from 266 sample households, where the sample sized detrained by standard method. The data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics with Pearson chi-square to examine the association between the watershed management (WSM) activities and livelihood of smallholder farmers. The study verified that besides reducing natural resource degradation and WSM have great role in, creating job opportunity that enhanced income and livelihood of smallholder farmers. The study attested that the WSM contributed to farmer’s engagement in irrigation, cattle fattening, beekeeping, forest and tree seedling production as job opportunity and income source using created natural resource in the developed watersheds.

Key Words: Watershed management, Livelihood, Soil and water conservation, Smallholder farmers