Abstract:
Barley is the most economically important crop in Ethiopian as well as Gumer woreda.
Information is a crucial resource and production factor in agriculture which brings fresh
ideas and awareness of new opportunities, stimulates new thinking and practices and
improves decision making on problem facing in farming activities. However, products and
productivity of barley in the study area were very low. Inadequate access to agricultural
information about barley production and marketing were one of the bottlenecks for this low
products and productivity. Hence, this study was designed to assess the contributions of
agricultural information to barley producer farmers in Gumer woreda. A survey approach
was employed to collect important data from sample respondents for the study. Multi stages
sampling were used in which both purposive and random sampling procedures was followed
to select four kebeles and 149 respondents. Structured interview schedule was developed, pretested
and used to collect essential data from sample respondents for the study. Discussion
with key informants (DA, SMSt and GWAO officials), and members of four focus group
discussion and field observations was conducted to generate qualitative data of the study. In
addition, secondary data of the study were gathered from reports of Gumer woreda
agricultural office, records of DA and by browsing internet. The quantitative data of the study
were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools including mean, frequency, percentage, chi
square, and ANOVA and econometrics models of ordered logit model. The ordered logit model
result reveals that education level, radio ownership, income, access to information and
information seeking behavior of the respondents had positive and significant influence on
contributions of agricultural information toward barley producer farmers, whereas, age of
respondents has negative and significant influence on agricultural information contributions.
The findings, unveils that more than 60% of respondents had access to agricultural
information about barley production and marketing. It was also revealed that access to market
related information by respondent was lower as compared to those of production related
information. The overall contributions of agricultural information toward barley producer
farmers in the study area were at moderate level. Based on the findings, effective utilization of
radio and mobile phone, application of relevant information transmission media, allocating
responsible person for information dissemination, teaching farmers to engage in market
oriented production, provision of information in local language and strengthening adult
education were suggested to improve the benefits of farmers from agricultural information.
