This study sought to determine farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for 2-wheel tractor hiring services in Northwestern Ethiopia. Survey questionnaire related to CVM was designed and face-to face interview were made to collect the data. Moreover, focus group discussion used to generate qualitative information on household characteristics. Both purposive and stratified sampling techniques were used based on gender, wealth class and soil type of the sampled households. For the study, a total of 144 farm households were considered using double bounded contingent valuation methods approach with an open-ended follow-up question. The study result indicated that the mean amount of money farmers is willing to pay was 1121.026 ETB (56.05 USD) per hectare. Econometric results confirm that the education level of households, land size of households, male labor availability and soil type were the factors that affecting the farmers’ level of willingness to pay positively. However, age of households and tropical livestock unit (TLU) were the factors that affected the same negatively. About 80% of the sampled farmers were willing to use 2-wheel THS. The finding of this study showed that farmers demand for improved 2-wheel THS is high. Hence, there is a need to consider the above factors to introduce 2-wheel tractor hiring service for cultivation practice in the study area.Â
In Ethiopia, rice is a recently introduced crop which is considered as the “Millennium crop” expected to hugely contribute food security. This paper seeks to measure the technical, allocative, and economic efficiency of rain-fed rice production and identify the factors that affect the efficiency of farmers in Fogera Districts of the Amhara Region. For the study, cross-sectional data were collected from a survey of 230 smallholder rice producers. The study used stochastic frontier production(SFA) and cost function to investigate the variations in the efficiency level of rice producers. The result indicated that the TE was higher as compared with the EE and AE. The average TE ranges between 24% and 93% with a mean of 70%. However, the mean of EE was 24.40 % and the AE 37.30%. Therefore, reduction of cost of production (such as improved input supply systems), warehouse facilities to keep produce and prevent the immediate sale of a product, introducing of a contract marketing system would improve the economic efficiency of the rice farming. Intervention on education and training on female-headed households, reducing family dependency, training of older farmers’ were vital to increase the EE of rice production.Similarly, improving the farmer’s education level to boost knowledge about new rice technology applications, and frequent training of farmers would enhance the TE of farmers in the study area.
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