DETERMINANTS OF FARMERS’ ADOPTION ON SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES; THE CASE OF KAFA ZONE, GIMBO DISTRICT, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Agriculture is an engine for Ethiopian economy. However, its productivity still low due to land degradation and poor Agricultural practices. The recommended treatment for land degradation may be shift the all previous conventional farming in to Sustainable Agricultural Practices. Sustainable Agricultural Practices (SAP’s) is a set of practices that increase productivity while conserving soil, which put on firm foundation of conservation tillage, use of compost, fallowing farm, legume intercropping and crop rotation. Despite use of Sustainable Agriculture is panacea for aggravated land degradation particularly. This study therefore assessed factors that influencing farmer’s adoption on SAPs’ in Gimbo district, South Region, Ethiopia. The multi stage sampling procedure was used to identify kebeles and sample respondents. In the first stage the study area was purposively selected because of the presence of SAPs’ and researcher references. Then sample rural kebeles in the district were stratified in to agro ecology, woinadega and kola, of which, tulla and kutti kebeles were selected randomly and a total of 120 sample respondents were selected randomly proportion to size from identified kebeles. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from sample respondents. While qualitative data were generated from observations, focus group discussion using checklists. Quantitative data were collected from selected sample respondents using structured interview schedule during survey time from 2019. The questionnaire were pre-tested, revised and administered by well-trained enumerators recruited from the study area. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, standard deviation, T-test and chi-square were used to summarize the data while binary logit model used to identify the most important factors that determine households decision to invest in SAPs’. Among total sample respondents 80 were adopter the rest 40 were non-adopters. Sex, Age, Educational status, participation in local kebele Administration, farm size, plot distance, Labour availability, Livestock owned, Number of Plot, Soil fertility Status, and Land Tenure were had significant mean difference between non-investors and investors, to invest in SAPs’. Results of binary logit model indicate that, Farm Size, Educational Status , Soil Fertility Status, Slop of the Plot, Total Livestock Owned and Walking distance from the Residences to the plot, had significant influence on farmers adoption on Sustainable Agricultural Practice. Generally the result of this study indicates that Agricultural Land Management Practices is the aggregate of many factors which should be given due attention in the innovation and transfer of agricultural technologies like SAP’s