ABSTRACT
India has been one of the few countries in the world which showed awareness of the need to conserve and care for the watershed resources of land, water, plants and animals in an integrated manner and the government has invested heavily on soil and water conservation (SWC) measures on watershed basis and many big projects are currently in operation. The results to-date of the government SWC programs have been disappointing (Vaidyanathan, 1991). SWC measures installed under special programs have rarely been maintained; on the contrary, there are many instances where farmers have destroyed these works soon after the departure of the implementing agency. Recent studies have shown, however, that in many regions the farmers’ lack of interest in SWC programs has not been due to their lack of concern about erosion, but because the design of recommended technologies has not been suitable for their small farms (Kerr and Sanghi, 1992; Reij, 1991). It is now becoming clear that there are significant differences between farmers’ and scientist’s perceptions regarding soil erosion control (Chambers, 1991; Kerr and Sanghi, 1992). Many SWC interventions are not successful because they are not sufficiently rooted in the priorities and perceptions of the local farmers (Gupta, 1991; Reij, 1991; Fujisaka, 1989).
