Agricultural Practices and Soil and Water Conservation in the Transboundary Region of Kenya and Uganda: Farmers’ Perspectives of Current Soil Erosion

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have finished my review on the Manuscript Number: agriculture-2473250 Title: Agricultural practices and soil water conservation in the transboundary region of Kenya and Uganda: Farmers perspectives of current soil erosion.    

1.      Generally, the manuscript is well written and presents an interesting topic for the journal of Agriculture.

2.      Please change some keywords. Like the soil fertility and soil water conservation practices.

3.      The Abstract needs to be rewritten, especially in the methods and objectives sections.

4.      I suggest to add some works about soil conservation practices in introduction. Please read and add references as follows:

Savari, M., Yazdanpanah, M. & Rouzaneh, D. Factors affecting the implementation of soil conservation practices among Iranian farmers. Sci Rep 12, 8396 (2022).

Xu, L., Zhang, D., Proshad, R. et al. Effects of soil conservation practices on soil erosion and the size selectivity of eroded sediment on cultivated slopes. J. Mt. Sci. 18, 1222–1234 (2021).

Misagh Parhizkar, Mahmood Shabanpour ……Effects of length and application rate of rice straw mulch on surface runoff and soil loss under laboratory simulated rainfall. International Journal of Sediment Research 36 (2021) 468e478.

5.      Why did you choose this study area? According to what? Investigation or other researches?

6.      The results and Discussion sections are OK.

 

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript. All the changes have been highlighted in the color yellow in the revised manuscript. We have uploaded a word document with the revision suggestions as well as our responses. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

your article is interesting. I learned a lot of useful information about Kenya and Uganda. But that's not the point, because you have to correct it. I found some minor bugs that you will correct. All my comments are in the pdf file.

Best regards

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

no comments.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript. All the changes have been highlighted in the color yellow in the revised manuscript. We have uploaded a word document with the revision suggestions as well as our responses. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is interesting and it is well written. It has conditions to be accepted for publication after minor revisions. Specific comments were realized along the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer 3,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript. All the changes have been highlighted in the color yellow in the revised manuscript. We have uploaded a word document with the revision suggestions as well as our responses. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript entitled Agricultural practices and soil water conservation in the trans-boundary region of Kenya and Uganda: Farmers perspectives of current soil erosion after Major Revision.

 

I believe that the subject of this paper is relevant to Journal Agriculture MDPI after major revision and have approved (moderate) corrections.

 

The topic of the paper is very interesting and important, especially in the context of soil erosion issues and their effect on land in Africa.

Journal Agriculture MDPI is committed to receiving interesting and high quality papers.

Initially, the paper has the following sections and subsections (i.e., Abstract, Introduction, Agricultural land degradation in Kenya and Uganda, Materials and Methods, Background information , Hydrology and climate, Farmer questionnaire on agricultural practices, Background information on the questionnaire, Soil erosion and fertility as reported by farmers, Soil and Water Conservation Practices , Results, General household farm characteristics , Crops in the Sio Malaba Malakisi River Basin, Major crops grown , Farmers’ perception of soil erosion and fertility conditions, Applied soil and water conservation practices, Farmers' perception of the SWCPs and soil erosion , Decision makers and their influence on applied agricultural practices , Discussion, Farm household characteristics and agricultural practices , Major crops grown in the SMMRB and their spatial distribution in relation to topography , The status of soil erosion , Soil erosion and perceived change in fertility, Soil Water Conservation practices/measures practiced within the study area , Soil Water Conservation Practices/measures in relation to perceived soil erosion , The decision-makers within the SMMRB and their influence on applied agricultural practices , Conclusions, etc.).

 

Because of the large number of short scientific worlds, I strongly recommend that authors add a special section called Section of Abbreviations.

The section of Abstract  

This section is well written on the whole, but in my opinion a few sentences should be added in this section explaining the main results of this research. Also, the authors should add in this section the one sentence how this research can be extending in the future.

In the section Keywords the authors should add one more word which explain the main author work. Maybe RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation), MUSLE (Modified Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation).

 

The section of Introduction

I recommend the authors to add more sentences describing previous research with similar or very similar topic. In this section, the authors need to write more about similar cases in the bordering countries in Africa.

Because of the use of different spatial techniques and methods in analysis of soil erosion effects and crops distributions, I strongly recommend the authors to read and cite two valuable references

The references are

- Valjarević, A., Popovici, C., Štilić, A. et al. Cloudiness and water from cloud seeding in connection with plants distribution in the Republic of Moldova. Appl Water Sci 12, 262 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-022-01784-3.

- El Mekkaoui, A.; Moussadek, R.; Mrabet, R.; Douaik, A.; El Haddadi, R.; Bouhlal, O.; Elomari, M.; Ganoudi, M.; Zouahri, A.; Chakiri, S. Effects of Tillage Systems on the Physical Properties of Soils in a Semi-Arid Region of Morocco. Agriculture 2023, 13, 683. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13030683.

 

In this section, the authors need to add more explanation about government programs to reclaim the land in both countries. Also, the timing of climate change and the impact of weather  extremes.

Figure 1,

This figure is well drawn, but it would be good if the authors could put geographic coordinates on the map for clarity.

In this section, the authors need to add more about the geographic locations (main sites) of this area, especially related to climate or weather extremes, soil properties, and vegetation types.

 

Socioeconomic, sociocultural, and political aspects subsection

In this section, authors need to add information on population data. Although authors may have some problems finding appropriate references, they must make an effort to find them.

 

Background information on the questionnaire subsection

I did not see a table or graph about the questionnaire? Can you explain?

Figure 2: As with Figure 1, the legend is difficult to see, please correct.

Soil and water conservation practices subsection

In this section, the authors need to present the historical background of soil management practices in both countries.

Figure 5, the same as for Figure 1.

Figure 10, the same as for Figure 1.

In my opinion, the authors need to add more about the RUSLE and MUSLE methods.

Also, it is not clear whether the authors used the GIS method to measure plant traits or not, please explain more.

 

Conclusion section

In this section, the authors should write more about the relationship between the methodology and the estimated results.

As I mentioned in the answers above, this method can also be compared to other methods used to measure soil properties and soil erosion.

This section is overall too short and should definitely be extended

 

In this section, the authors need to answer the following questions?

 

Why is this research important?

How did the authors estimate total soil erosion in Kenya and Uganda?

This paper has the potential to be published. The paper is very interesting and scientifically correct.

In the end, I recommend a Major revision

Good luck to the authors

 

Reviewer#1

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear reviewer 4,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript. All the changes have been highlighted in the color yellow in the revised manuscript. We have uploaded a word document with the revision suggestions as well as our responses. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

With a questionnaire survey on 200 farms (households) agricultural practices and soil and water conservation under farmers perception was studied. In Introduction problems of land degradation and indirect effects of soil erosion on water quality are described, but water quality is NOT the topic of this study. Research area vulnerability is well described. Its a baseline study on farnmers perceptions. Aims with questions are good. But literature references on farmers perception of soil erosion in East Africa is missing (e.g. Ethopia multiple studies). In Methods its not clear, which social-agricultural data collections from both countries were used and how for the questionnaire? Also statistical analysis is not sufficient described (correlation analysis, ANOVA?, significance?). How answers from questionnaires were stastically analysed, outliers?, test on plausibility? - Fig. 1 as basic map is ok - what is the meaning "Reference source not there"? (in text)

For region characteristic climate diagrams and/or rainfall distribution map (yearly) is missing (2.1.2). Also socio-economic description is very rough - more background information on farm-size distribution, age of farming (converting forest or savannah), main crops, crop yield development in the region/subregions? add table.

Questions on soil erosion are very general (yes or no)- no differenciation in type pf soil erosion (sheet-, rill-, gully-erosion) on farm - because this is important for annalysis of answers on soil conservation practices. How often - every year soil erosion?Also change in soil quality too general asked - what are the indicators by farmers to answer this? (see literature- e.g. change in soil color, less humus horizon, deep rills ??)

Results with figures are well described, but main problem for readers: analysis covers very different climate-vegetation belts with main crops (see Fig. 5). A differenciation with main climatic regions to discuss relations main crops, soil erosion and soil-water conservation is necessary. Also missing problem of rainfall variability in last years for crop yield - perhaps this had more influence on farmers perception with reduced crop yields than soil erosion? See Fig. 8 - it will be better to differenciate in soil- and in water conservation npractices for result description and discussion. Concern table: where SWCP practiced more soil erosion occurs - why? correlation with steeper slopes?

In Discussion development of crop area and LUC is very general discussed (4.2)- specify more. In 4.3.1 - what you mean by severe soil erosion?

Rows 498/499: "soil erosion related to reduced soil fertility - is trivial, give statistical values and these rows are in contradiction to Tab. 3!

Chapter with with rows 524-534 shows, that a differenciation of results and discussion between mountainous area and foreland (less slope inclinations) is necessary! (e.g. terracing only at Mt. Elgon slopes?). The discussion, why farmers in part use no conservation practices is ok. But there is no information on role of agricultural rural extension service or advicing agencies.

In references and discussion no relation to the SysCom-program by FIBL in Kenia (Long-term farming systems comparison trials) - multiple results for conservation practices and organis farming there - must be included in the discussion (see Adamtey et al. several years, Arb et al. 2020, Musyoka et al. 2019, Ayango et al. 2019, Atandi et al. 2017).

In total: results are fine and of interest, but must be specified partly and in Conclusion how better small-farm management can be done with spatial differenciation in the region?

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer 5,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript. All the changes have been highlighted in the color yellow in the revised manuscript. We have uploaded a word document with the revision suggestions as well as our responses. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have made many changes to the text and just need to touch it up a bit.

 

In the Introduction section, more sentences need to be added about the ways and means by which farmers can evaluate soil erosion control improvements.

 

Also, the authors have said that they have included the recommended references in the text, but I did not find the two references, so if possible, correct that. 

The author's answer follows, but the references are not included in the reference list

 

The references are - Valjarević, A., Popovici, C., Štilić, A. et al. Cloudiness and water from cloud seeding in connection with plants distribution in the Republic of Moldova. Appl Water Sci 12, 262 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-022-01784-3. - El Mekkaoui, A.; Moussadek, R.; Mrabet, R.; Douaik, A.; El Haddadi, R.; Bouhlal, O.; Elomari, M.; Ganoudi, M.; Zouahri, A.; Chakiri, S. Effects of Tillage Systems on the Physical Properties of Soils in a Semi-Arid Region of Morocco. Agriculture 2023, 13, 683. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13030683.

Done and included in lines 154 - 157 in the revised manuscript) In this section, the authors need to add more explanation about government programs to reclaim the land in both countries. Also, the timing of climate change and the impact of weather extremes.

Done

 

The conclusion section is good overall, but in this section it is necessary to add some sentences about future work on the same and similar topics.

 

Good luck to the authors

 

Reviewer #4

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking your time to review our work for the second round. The changes made have been documented in the word document attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

Second review - comments in blue (with paste not blue!)
Agricultural practices and soil and water conservation in the 1 transboundary region of Kenya and Uganda: Farmers’ perspectives of 2 current soil erosion
Its a baseline study on farnmers perceptions. Aims with questions are good. But literature references on farmers perception of soil erosion in East Africa is missing (e.g. Ethopia multiple studies).
We have included some studies on farmers’ perception of soil erosion and soil water conservation practices in Eastern Africa. (See lines 103 - 126 in the revised manuscript)
That´s ok
In Methods its not clear, which social-agricultural data collections from both countries were used and how for the questionnaire?
We have amended the manuscript to include this information (See lines 243 - 287 in the revised manuscript)
ok
Also statistical analysis is not sufficient described (correlation analysis, ANOVA?, significance?). How answers from questionnaires were stastically analysed, outliers?, test on plausibility? - Fig. 1 as basic map is ok - what is the meaning "Reference source not there"? (in text)
For region characteristic climate diagrams and/or rainfall distribution map (yearly) is missing (2.1.2).
We understand that adding a characteristic climate diagram or rainfall distribution map would be interesting to the reader. Due to the scope of the study (which is not necessarily rainfall) we added additional descriptive information on the spatial distribution of rainfall in the study area and refer to Omonge et al. (2021) for the requested information. We have however added Figure 2 & 3 show the climatic water balance in the background as an indicator of water availability.
Distribution of crops and water balance now illustrated, but NO answers on statistical analysis!
Also socio-economic description is very rough - more background information on farm-size distribution, age of farming (converting forest or savannah), main crops, crop yield development in the region/subregions?
More information has been added. More description added
Questions on soil erosion are very general (yes or no)- no differenciation in type pf soil erosion (sheet-, rill-, gully-erosion) on farm - because this is important for annalysis of answers on soil conservation practices.
We fully agree that this information would be interesting. The broader scope of the study and questionnaire survey however did not allow to differentiate types of soil erosion. We hope for the understanding that we therefore cannot not provide this information.
For discussion of soil conservation by farmers this is important – but not asked for and added!
How often - every year soil erosion?
The questions on soil erosion ranged from MAJOR Soil and water conservation practice (B32); Proportion of the plot protected by the MAJOR SWCP (B33); Year when the MAJOR SCP was established (B34); Perceived change in area under SCP practice in last 5 years (code B35); Main reason for the change in (B36). These topics were all asked during the questionnaire administration but for this manuscript only questions B32 and B33 were analyzed and discussed. A follow-up manuscript is planned to tie in the farmers’ perception and actual erosion values to calculate the soil erosion risk of the catchment and to evaluate potential Best Management practices to mitigate the erosion risk.
Only question on soil and water conservation practice, hint to following paper is useless!

2
Also change in soil quality too general asked - what are the indicators by farmers to answer this? (see literature- e.g. change in soil color, less humus horizon, deep rills ??)
Here we asked the farmers if there was any perceived change in the soil fertility status of plots in the last 5 years (B38), Main reason for change in B38 (B39) and the farmers had options of increased, decreased or remained the same. Here they had options of various indicators 1=increased use of mineral fertilizer on the plot, 2=increased use of organic manure on the plot, 3=increased use of combination of mineral fertilizer and organic manure on the plot, 4=leaving the plot fallowed (uncultivated) for some seasons, 5= Use practices of erosion control measures, 6= Lack capacity (money) to use fertilizers (inorganic or organic), 7= Continuous cultivation without fallowing, 8= destroyed soil conservation structures, 9= others.Most farmers specified that they experienced a significant reduction of their yield over the years even though their farm management practices did not change. The broader scope of the study and questionnaire survey did not allow to differentiate or evaluate specific characteristics related to the soil quality. We hope for the understanding that we therefore cannot not provide this information. The questionnaire is included in the supplementary material as Appendix 1
Seems to be a misunderstanding – answers for use of fertilizers etc. is a topic of soil management, but NOT how farmers evaluate soil erosion with their perception on farm. If characteristics of soil quality is not the topic oft he study, than results and discussion on it seems very rough!
Results with figures are well described, but main problem for readers: analysis covers very different climate-vegetation belts with main crops (see Fig. 5). A differenciation with main climatic regions to discuss relations main crops, soil erosion and soil-water conservation is necessary.
The study area experiences a climatic gradient from Lake Victoria towards Mt. Elgon. This gradient is however not as strong as one could expect since Lake Victoria modulates the rainfall conditions. The shores of the lake receive around 1 500 mm. Areas of higher elevation on the southern side of Mt. Elgon receive around 1,800 mm/a. In contrast, areas on the northern, leeward side receive significantly less rainfall ranging from 900 – 1,200 mm.
We added Figure 2 & 3, which shows the climatic water balance (as the difference between rainfall and reference evapotranspiration) in the background as an indicator of water availability and potential climatic gradients. The spatial patterns of the rainfall conditions and climatic water balance agree with the spatial patterns of vegetation cover measured by the NDVI shown in the maps of the study area (Fig. 1). The spatial variability of vegetation cover is however not very pronounced (with exception of the forested areas and National Park around Mt. Elgon.
It is clear that spatial differences occur in crops grown. These are however also not as pronounced. Fig. 2 & 3 show that for example Maize is grown in all the study area. Other crops, e.g. Matoke, Cassava, Sweet Potato or Rice are mostly limited to areas in Uganda and do not follow a spatial pattern associated with rainfall. The cultural influence, but also flatter topographic conditions and wetlands probably play a more important role than rainfall. Sugar cane is limited to a specific area around Bungoma in the northern part of the Sio catchment, not necessarily because of climate, but due to historical developments and a nearby sugar factory.
These observations are also supported by the spatial distribution of the crops grown in the 2 planting season (Fig. 5)Season 1 is the long rainy season (February – June) where the farm preparations starts in February and March in preparation for the long rains which begin in April and end in June. In this season mostly Maize and Beans are grown. The second season is characterized by the short rainy season (September – January), in which most farmers plant legumes. This are mostly beans because they grow fast and also fix nitrogen. Secondary crops in this case are the crops that were grown after the two main crops for each farmer in their plots/farms.
With figures 2+3 now this point better illustrated.

3
Also missing problem of rainfall variability in last years for crop yield - perhaps this had more influence on farmers perception with reduced crop yields than soil erosion? See Fig. 8 - it will be better to differenciate in soil- and in water conservation npractices for result description and discussion. Concern table: where SWCP practiced more soil erosion occurs - why? Correlation with steeper slopes?
Rainfall, especially in Western Kenya and the study area has increased strongly in the last decade (see e.g. Fig. A3 in Herrnegger et al. 2021 under https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2021.100857). Therefore we would rather rule out that rainfall lead to decreases in reduced crop yields. We would therefore prefer to keep the result description the way it is. This is also supported by the other reviews who did not object the current structure.
ok
In Discussion development of crop area and LUC is very general discussed (4.2)- specify more.
In 4.3.1 - what you mean by severe soil erosion?
Here we discuss our results in comparison to Buyinza et al. (2007), who mentioned in their study that the farmers reported severe soil erosion.
Still very general – without own evaluation
Rows 498/499: "soil erosion related to reduced soil fertility - is trivial, give statistical values and these rows are in contradiction to Tab. 3!
The results of a chi-square test of the independence between soil erosion and fertility showed that the variables had a significant (X2 (2, N = 198) = 92.8, p = < .001) relationship. Thus, soil erosion was more likely to reduce farm fertility. This has been presented in section 3.3
Table 3 shows the relationship between management practices and perceived soil erosion
ok
Chapter with with rows 524-534 shows, that a differenciation of results and discussion between mountainous area and foreland (less slope inclinations) is necessary! (e.g. terracing only at Mt. Elgon slopes?). The discussion, why farmers in part use no conservation practices is ok. But there is no information on role of agricultural rural extension service or advicing agencies.
During the questionnaire, we had informal discussions with the farmers to understand their situations, (this particular topic was a sensitive matter and therefore not documented and not part of the survey responses because of the farmers privacy issues), it came out that the agricultural extensions officers rarely visited the farms for both Kenya and Uganda and when they did it was
only when they needed to implement a funded project and they needed model farms and even the selection was highly baised/skewed to more affluent farmers with connections.
That´s the result also by other studies – add reference for this
In references and discussion no relation to the SysCom-program by FIBL in Kenia (Long-term farming systems comparison trials) - multiple results for conservation practices and organis farming there - must be included in the discussion (see Adamtey et al. several years, Arb et al. 2020, Musyoka et al. 2019, Ayango et al. 2019, Atandi et al. 2017)
The SysCom program by FIBL is specifically for organic agricultural production systems in the tropics, for example Atandi, J. G., et al. (2022) experimented with free living nematodes while Anyango, J.J. et al 2019, 2020 experimented with termites. The mentioned works are interesting scientific studies and relevant for conservation agriculture. The are at the same time very scientific and we are unsure if they fit into the scope of this study.
Indeed specific for morganic farming – but how farmers can improve their cultivations, this can be included into the discussion
In total: results are fine and of interest, but must be specified partly and in Conclusion how better small-farm management can be done with spatial differenciation in the region?
We have reworked the conclusion. Thank you very much for your input ok

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking your time to review our work for the second round. The changes made have been documented in the word document attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx