Farmer’s Decision To Practice Crop Rotation in Arsi Negelle, Ethiopia: What are the Determinants?

Abstract

Though Ethiopia is an agrarian country, imbalance between the population growth and the agricultural production growth rate is one of the pronounced national problems that the country is facing. In addition, the agricultural sector in the country is characterized by inadequate resource endowment, traditional methods of cultivation and husbandary practices, limited access to land, credit and agricultural innovation. Crop rotation is one of the responses to enhance productivity and improve soil fertility. However, the adoption of this practice by smallholder farmers is limited. Therefore, the major concern of this study is to empirically examine factors influencing adoption of crop rotation by smallholder farmers in Arsi Negelle district of Ethiopia. In the process of the study both primary and secondary data were used. In this study, stratified sampling procedure was used to select 160 sample households from three kebeles (74 household who are practicing crop rotation and 86 non-adopters). The required data were collected using interview through structured questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors influencing adoption of crop rotation and results of the regression analysis indicate that educational level of the household, farming experience and extension contact were the most important factors influencing decision of the farmer to practice crop rotation. Hence, emphasis should be given to improve the human capital through education and providing extension service to bring the non adopter into the board.