The Effectives of Indigenous Soil Conservation Techniques on Sustainable Crop Production (Report‪)‬

Introduction Over the centuries, intensive systems of soil and water conservation have been developed and practiced by local farmers settling around the adjacent plains of the Mandara Mountains of Northern Nigeria. Conservation farming techniques such as hillside terraces, stone-lines and bunds, trash-lines, sand-bag lines, earth-contour bunds, crop rotation, rice-bran mulch, vegetation-barriers and organic manuring utilize natural ecological processes to conserve moisture, improve soil structure, curtail soil erosion and enhance soil fertility (Morgan, 1986). Safe disposal of runoff water involves practices such as the physical manipulation of soils, which includes land shaping, construction of contour-bunds, terraces, waterways and ridges as measures to improve water infiltration and conservation (Ray, 2006).