ANALYSIS OF PREFERENCE FOR ADOPTION OF LEGUME TECHNOLOGY PACKAGES: THE CASE OF CHICK PEA AND COMMONBEAN PRODUCING SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN BORICHA AND DAMOT GALE DISTRICT, SOUTHERN REGION

Abstract

Understanding factors affecting farmers’ preference for Legume technology adoption is vital for research projects, government agricultural bureau, farmer unions and NGOs’ who are engaged in legume technology distribution to develop appropriate package that farmers are willing to adopt. This study was conducted to analyze factors affecting famers’ adoption preference for chickpea and common bean legume technology in Damot Gale and Boricha District of Southern Region of Ethiopia. The study is based on, conjoint analysis, a multivariate technique used to understand consumers’ preference for a technology from bundles of technology attributes and factors. The sample size used in the study was 120 for chickpea producers and 120 for common bean producers. The variables for the conjoint analysis were preference (dependent variable), seed, fertilizer, payment; fungicide, age, cooperative union membership, credit access and land size are external variables. The study has identified that regarding chickpea producer farmers in Damot Gale district the relative importance among legume technology package seed is the most important factor, fungicide is the second important factor, payment is the third and fertilizer is the last important factor. Regarding relative importance of Attribute type for common bean producers, Seed has the higher relative importance in both districts, payment is the second most important attribute for Boricha district while fungicide if for Damot Gale. Fertilizer is the least important attribute for both districts. This may indicate that farmers indeed have a preference for specific bundle of attributes for legume technology. Thus, government, research institutes, Development agents and projects need to carefully arrange attributes that have a higher preference when developing technology package.