Farm factors influencing spatial variations of cropland use and change in the context of urban expansion: The case of Jimma City, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Urban factors comprising economic and population growth are widely discussed as determinants of cropland-use change decisions and urbanization containment. Despite the academic discussion, farm factors remain detached from urban planning theories and practices. This study used a cross-sectional survey and remote sensing data to investigate farm factors influencing farmers’ cropland-use decisions. To measure human farm factors, a structured questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from a randomly selected 300 farmers in Jimma peri-urban areas while an unstructured questionnaire was used to gather views of conveniently recruited participants. Landsat-8 and the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) were employed to extract the physical factors. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model was used to determine significant farm factors of cropland-use decisions and the Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR) model was applied to map the spatial variation in cropland-use decisions along the rural-urban continuum. The results revealed that farm factors influenced the cropland-use decisions of farmers. Cropland-use conversion rates increase with distance to the urban center due to greater access to social services. The conversion rates also increase with decreasing slope gradients and good soil quality. Farmers with higher farm income, labour, and extension have lower cropland-use conversion rates while those with higher non-farm income and labour, family size, farm size, and education have higher conversion rates. The findings of this study suggest that government policies aimed at restricting urban growth and sustaining ecosystem services should adopt farm factors to preserve prime cropland-use along the rural-urban continuum. Considering farm factors in urban land-use planning also promotes synergistic rural-urban planning integrations to bring balanced rural-urban development, poverty reduction, slow urban migration, and smart urban growth.

Keywords

• Cropland-use
• Farm factors
• Urban factors
• Land-use planning
• Urban expansion
• Rural-urban continuum