Soil and water conservation technology can promote sustainable agricultural growth. Using data from 1,002 farmers in Shaanxi Province, Gansu Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in 2022 in China, this study employs Logit regression analysis to identify the factors that affect the adoption of soil and water conservation technology. Further, it measures changes in poverty depth and poverty vulnerability caused by the adoption of the technology under the propensity score matching (PSM) method. The results show that farmer's age and years of education, cultivated land area, presence of village cadres, and whether is a part-time agricultural workers are significantly affect adoption of soil and water conservation technology. The study also finds that the adoption of soil and water conservation technology can reduce poverty depth by 3.2% and poverty vulnerability by 5.0%. Soil and water conservation technology contributes significantly to poverty reduction among farmers and is more likely to reduce the likelihood of future poverty rather than just alleviate the current poverty of farmers.