This paper presents some results from a survey carried out in 2004 among 223 olive tree farmers from mountainous areas in the Spanish Southern provinces of Granada and Jaen regarding the adoption of soil conservation and management practices. Olive tree groves in mountainous areas are subject to a high risk of soil erosion and have to incur in higher costs of soil conservation. This results in greater difficulties to comply with cross-compliance and to benefit from agri-environmental schemes. Our main objectives are to analyse the current level of adoption of soil conservation practices and to analyse which socio-economic and institutional factors determine such adoption. Three Probit models are estimated. Dependant variables are three different soil conservation practices, namely tillage following contour lines, maintenance of terraces with stonewalls, and non-tillage with weedicides.