Soil loss, nutrient depletion and land degradation contribute to the skimpy performance of smallholder agriculture and pose serious policy challenges in developing countries. Surprisingly, natural resource management practices that enhance sustainability while improving productivity have not been fully adopted despite continuous efforts of promotion. Using data collected from 2901 farm households in the Farmers Innovation Fund (FIF) of the World Bank, this study examines factors delaying adoption of resource management and farming practices from the perspective of social learning and network size. Specifically, the study aims at identifying the extent to which differences in network structure matter in providing opportunities to learn about new ways of sustainable resource management practices using regression analysis. The result confirms that social network size plays a significant role in enhancing adoption of natural resource management practices. Moreover, external sources of information such as extension provision play a crucial role in enhancing adoption of resource management practices. Thus, future endeavours should link extension services to informal networks to enhance adoption of sustainable natural resource management practices.
Purpose
– Like many countries in the developing world, Ethiopia has leased out a huge amount of land to foreign investors. However, empirical evidence on the contribution of international investments to employment generation and food security is limited. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of large-scale farms to local-level food security in Bako Tibe District, Oromia Region.
Design/methodology/approach
– Primary data were collected from 200 randomly selected households from two purposefully selected villages in the district. Secondary data were collected from government offices and the literature. Propensity score matching was used to match households based on observable characteristics. Using the World Food Programme (WFP) approach, the food consumption score (FCS) of households was calculated. Finally, the Average Treatment effect for the Treated was determined.
Findings
– Findings indicate that foreign land deals increase the odds of households falling into food insecurity and that the employment opportunities are both temporal and marginal. Furthermore, these land deals result in a decline of households’ FCS and thus have a negative effect on households’ food security.
Research limitations/implications
– The result is based on a case study which is not generalizable to the whole of Ethiopia.
Practical implications
– The result implies that future endeavours should resort to substantial changes in the principles of investment as well as the design and enforcement of contracts on land transfers so that international investors can commit to objectives beyond private profit.
Originality/value
– It examines the effect of large-scale land transfers commonly termed as land grabbing on local food security. The paper makes an important contribution to the current policy debates regarding land grabbing in Ethiopia as research about the contribution of land deals to the food security is limited.
Wheat is among important cereal crops to ensuring food and nutrition security in developing countries like Ethiopia. The demand for wheat is projected as significantly increases mainly due to a rapidly population growth in the countries. Globally, wheat yield must grow at least by 1.6%. Whereas, in Ethiopia, the yield must grow from the current level 4.6 million tons to 10 million tons. This paper hence, presents the analysis of wheat yield and the underlying causes of its variability among farmers across major wheat growing areas of the country. Data was used from the farm-household survey conducted in 2014/15 by EIAR in collaboration with CIMMYT. Supplementary secondary data on wheat area, production and consumption, and available wheat varieties were used from CSA and MoARD. Data were analyzed using various techniques (including descriptive, inferential statistics and regression analysis). One way ANOVA was used to analyze the yield variability; whereas Weighted Least Square method was applied to identify the underlying causes for the variability of wheat yield among farmers. The result indicates that the average wheat production level per hectare (2.7 tons/ha) has been on the increase with inter annual variability, but the yield level is very low as compared to that of the research station (6-7 tons/ha) and the estimated average potential (5 tons/ha) in highland areas of the country. The yield gap analysis shows that 61%, 55% and 46% of wheat yield gap existed when the national average yield was compared with that of the actual yield at research station, farmers' plot and potential yield at highland part of the country, respectively. The empirical analysis found there is statistically significant level of yield variability among wheat growers. The findings of the study revealed that use of improved technologies and production inputs, household assets, support services, and agro-ecologies were the primary factors that cause wheat yield variation in Ethiopia. It is recommended that site-specific wheat production management, technology requirement map, proper institutional support services and sustainable natural resource management following inter and intra-farm/plot variability.
Background: Due to decreasing productivity trends, enhancing farm level technical efficiency (TE) in bread wheat production (BWP) is central to Ethiopia's food security strategy. This requires increased BW productivity through the use of improvements in seeds and TE. However, there is some empirical research that examines the institutional, socio-demographic, economic, and agronomic determinants of the TE of BWP simultaneously. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze determinants of TE and the implication of seed recycling on TE. Methods: The data was gathered from 450 randomly selected sample respondents via structured interviews, focus groups, and interviews with key informants. Data collection took place from December 15, 2021 to January 15, 2022. BW growing smallholder farmers were the major respondent of the study. Quantitative type of data including the number of inputs used, amount of wheat produced, and socio – demographic, economic, agronomic, and institutional variables were gathered and analyzed. The TE and factors affecting it were examined using a stochastic frontier production analysis with a trans-log functional specification. Results: The coefficients for labour (0.086), capital (0.22), fertilizer (0.042), weedicide (0.014), and machinery (0.005) were significantly positive at p<0.001 implying that an optimum increase to these inputs would increase BWP. The mean TE was found to be 79.99% indicating that farmers in the study operate 20.01% less than their potential. Nine of the hypothesized variables (69.2%) had significantly affected TE. Moreover, seed recycling reduced TE by 2.34%. Conclusion: Findings suggest that few farmers are able to grow BW either on the frontier or very close to it, which denotes high TE and poor access to improved seeds leading to seed recycling. Therefore, the farmer-to-farmer (F2F) extension method, which enables farmers to learn from their neighbors and create wider access to improved seeds through seed loans and vouchers are strongly suggested.
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