Increasing productivity through enhancing efficiency in cereal production in general and in wheat production in particular could be an important pace towards achieving food security. However, the strategic conceptual and empirical analysis in the context of the efficiency, which would guide policy makers and development practitioners in their efforts to revamp cereal productivity, is sparse. This study was undertaken to assess the technical efficiency and factors affecting efficiency of wheat production in Welmera district of Oromia region, Ethiopia. The primary data pertaining to farm production, input usage, and socioeconomic and institutional factors were collected during 2012/13 cropping year through a structured questionnaire from randomly selected 180 wheat farmers. The stochastic frontier and translog functional form with a one-step approach were employed to assess efficiency and factors affecting efficiency in wheat production. The maximum likelihood estimates for the inefficiency parameter depicted that most farmers in the study area were not efficient. The mean technical efficiency was found to be 57%. Factors such as sex, age and education level of the household head, livestock holding, group membership, farm size, fragmentation, tenure status and investment in inorganic fertilizers affect efficiency positively and distance to all weather roads negatively. The finding implies that there is an opportunity to improve technical efficiency among the farmers by 43% through gender-sensitive agricultural intervention, group approach extension, and attention to farmers' education, scaling out of best farm practices.

Women are often ignored from research and development agenda although they play key roles in agriculture in developing countries. They are excluded from decision making and as a result, they frequently do not have access to resources, technologies and extension services, credits, inputs and markets. This paper aims to document, using qualitative methods, how participatory approach through Farmers Research Group (FRG) can address gender inequalities and subsequently empower women smallholder farmers using a case study from Ethiopia. Through the participatory intervention, women farmers have enhanced their skills and knowledge of improved agricultural technologies as well as their collective capacity (social capital) in accessing input and output markets. As a result, the number of FRG members increased from 25 women farmers organized in one FRG in 2006 to 253 women farmers organized in 11 village-level Farmers Research Extension Groups (FREGs) in 2013. The participatory intervention in the study area has improved women's productivity of seed potatoes and marketing; enabled them to earn cash an average of Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 11 000 per year only from the sale of seed potatoes; and this has created more options to improve the livelihoods of women farmers and their households by diversifying into higher-value farm and off-farm work. Consequently, women decision making in the household as well as in the community has been enhanced. Women farmers are now heard at national level for their innovative experiences and have become one of the national seed potato and knowledge sources. There is a need to replicate this model approach to enhance the productivity of smallholder women farmers and subsequently empower them to facilitate exit pathways out of poverty and ensure sustainable development.

This study was carried out to evaluate the beekeeping husbandry practices and honey production in three districts of Waghimra Zone (Abergell, Sekota and Gazgibala). To collect the data, 332 respondents were selected using systematic random sampling from the three districts. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaire, observation, key information interview and focus group discussion. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA using SPSS version-20. The overall trends of bee colony and honey production are declining over the last 5 years. The average honey yield per year/colony was 10.16, 13.61 and 23.32 kg for traditional, transitional and moveable frame hives, respectively. Most of the respondents (68.4%) in the study area practiced traditional beekeeping whereas 7.8 and 23.8% of the respondents practiced transitional and modern bee keeping system, respectively. There was a significant difference (p<0.05%) among the three agro-ecologies on traditional honeybee colonies holding per household. The major source of household income is from crop production 27.7%, livestock production 23.8%, beekeeping activities 16.9% and irrigation 15.4%. Therefore, beekeeping is the third ranking source of income for the households in the study area. Most of the respondents (bee keepers) visit their bees some times and rarely in months. Generally, beekeeping is still the 3rd major source of income for the households in the study area next to crop and livestock production, however, the expected output or income has not earned from this subsector due to various challenges existed in the study area. Thus, based on these findings, improving the awareness of the beekeepers through training is important to address the identified challenges and to improve the overall honey production in Waghimara Zone.