land Article Farmers Willingness to Participate In Voluntary Land Consolidation in Gozamin District, Ethiopia Abebaw Andarge Gedefaw 1,2,* , Clement Atzberger 1 , Walter Seher 3 and Reinfried Mansberger 1 1 Institute of Surveying, Remote Sensing and Land Information, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Peter-Jordan-Strasse 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria;
[email protected] (C.A.);
[email protected] (R.M.) 2 Institute of Land Administration, Debre Markos University, 269 Debre Markos, Ethiopia 3 Institute of Spatial Planning, Environmental Planning and Land Rearrangement, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Peter-Jordan-Strasse 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria;
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[email protected] Received: 10 September 2019; Accepted: 10 October 2019; Published: 12 October 2019 Abstract: In many African countries and especially in the highlands of Ethiopia—the investigation site of this paper—agricultural land is highly fragmented. Small and scattered parcels impede a necessary increase in agricultural efficiency. Land consolidation is a proper tool to solve inefficiencies in agricultural production, as it enables consolidating plots based on the consent of landholders. Its major benefits are that individual farms get larger, more compact, contiguous parcels, resulting in lower cultivation efforts. This paper investigates the determinants influencing the willingness of landholder farmers to participate in voluntary land consolidation processes. The study was conducted in Gozamin District, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The study was mainly based on survey data collected from 343 randomly selected landholder farmers. In addition, structured interviews and focus group discussions with farmers were held. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively mainly by using a logistic regression model and qualitatively by using focus group discussions and expert panels.