ACCESS TO AND UTILIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION ON BREAD WHEAT BY SMALLHOLDER FARMERS OF GEDAB HASASA DISTRICT, WEST ARSI ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Ethiopia is the second largest wheat producer in Sub Sahran Africa (SSA). Bread Wheat is widely grown in Oromia region in general and Gedab Hasasa district in particular as food and cash crop. However, the production and productivity of the crop in the study district is lower than national average. Inadequate access to appropriate agricultural information and utilization is one of the stumbling blocks for such reducing production and productivity of bread wheat. Hence, the main goal of this study was to assess the level of farmers’ access to and utilization of agricultural information and to identify factors affecting the access to and utilization of agricultural information on bread wheat production package. In the course of this study primary data were collected from sampled households who were engaged only in bread wheat package users. In this study multistage sampling technique was employed. In the first stage, four PAs were purposively and randomly selected based on high potential wheat growers’ kebeles. In the second stage, on the basis of statistical random sampling techniques of probability proportional to size (PPS) of the number of farmers, 138 sample respondents were randomly drawn from the list of farmers in each chosen kebeles. With regard to data type, both primary and secondary data were collected. Primary data were collected from respondents through prepared personal interview scheduleand FDG and secondary data were from Woreda Office of Agriculture and Rural Development. Data were analyzed using qualitative methods, descriptive statistics and ordered logit model. As a descriptive statistics, mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and range was used. In relation to statistical tests, one way ANOVA, F-value, Chi-square and spearman’s raho were applied. To identify determinants factors of information access and utilization among the wheat package users, ordered logit model was used. With regard to econometric model, of the 11 hypothesized variables, 8 variables such as, age of households, family size, on-farm income, achievement motivation, access to market, social participation, extension participation and access to credit were found to be significant in explaining the access categories. Five variables such as land holding size, on-farm income, off-farm income, access to credit and extension participation were found to be significant in explaining the utilization categories. Therefore, policy and development interventions should give emphasis to improvement of such institutional support system so as to achieve wider access, utilization, increased productivity and income of small scale farmers.