Factors affecting use of organic fertilizer among smallholder farmers in Sekela district of Amhara region, Northwestern Ethiopia

Abebe, Gedefaw; Debebe, Sisay

doi:10.1080/23311932.2019.1669398

Cited by 28 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Those households mostly engaged in sustainable crop production practices with less attention to immediate benefits. Consistent with this suggestions, Abebe and Debebe [79] reported that illiterate households prefer to apply organic sources of fertilizers as compared with educated households for crop production. In contrast, a positive association of education level was obtained with intercropping, supplementary irrigation, and soil and water conservation adaptation strategies.…”

Section: Education Levelmentioning

confidence: 65%

Smallholder Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change and Adaptation Practices for Maize Production in Eastern Ethiopia

et al. 2021

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Climate change and variability is affecting maize (Zea mays L.) production in eastern Ethiopia but how farmers perceive the challenge and respond to it is not well documented. A study was conducted to analyze smallholder maize farmers’ perception of climate change/variability and identify their adaptation approaches and barriers for adaptation in the eastern highlands of Ethiopia. Meteorological data were assessed to provide evidence of the perceived change. A survey was conducted in six major maize-producing kebeles with a total of 364 respondents. A multi-stage sampling method was employed for selecting the sample units for the study. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a multinomial logit model. The results indicated that 78% of the sampled smallholder maize farmers perceived increasing temperatures while 83% perceived decreasing amounts of rainfall. About 75% of the farmers indicated that they became aware of climate change and variability from their own experience and perceived deforestation as the main cause. The farmers perceived that drought, diseases and pests, dwindling soil fertility, and declining crop yields were the major impacts of climate change that affected maize production. The farmers’ major adaptation practices include adjusting planting dates, using improved maize varieties, intercropping, recommended mineral fertilizers, supplementary irrigation, and soil and water conservation measures. Econometric analysis revealed that low educational level, shortage of land, large family sizes, age, lack of access to irrigation water, lack of access to credit, and lack of access to extension services were the most important barriers to climate change adaptation in the area. It is concluded that farmers cultivating maize in the study area have perceived climate change and use certain adaptation strategies to counter its negative impacts on maize production. This implies that policies should be geared towards strengthening farmers’ efforts to adapt to climate change and alleviate the existing barriers in promoting adaptation strategies for enhancing the productivity of maize.

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Section: Education Levelmentioning

confidence: 65%

Smallholder Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change and Adaptation Practices for Maize Production in Eastern Ethiopia

et al. 2021

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“…Participation in extension service negatively influences choice organic fertilizer, revealing that farmers are not aware of organic fertilizer or lack available organic fertilizer sources. However, opposite relations were found by Abebe and Debebe (2019). The farmers who have access to sufficient credit facilities are less likely to apply organic fertilizer than those who have no credit-constrained, indicating that farmers may use their credit for food security requirements than farming practice.…”

Section: Psm For Finding the Proper Counterfactual Group Of Organic Fertilizer Usersmentioning

confidence: 92%

Do organic fertilizer impact on yield and efficiency of rice farms? Empirical evidence from Bangladesh

Salam

Sarker

Sharmin

2021

Heliyon

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Organic fertilizer is one of the critical elements of organic and sustainable agricultural development. This study analyzes the economic impact of organic fertilizer on rice farms' yield and technical efficiency (TE) in Bangladesh. The Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) approach has been employed by using a sample of 2652 rice plots covering seven broad agro-ecological zones of Bangladesh. It also addresses self-selection into the organic fertilizer choice using propensity score matching (PSM) that corrects observed selection bias that potentially influences both decisions to choose and technical efficiency. After PSM, organic fertilizer users produce 16.67% higher yield by using 12.1%, 9.40%, and 42.1% less labor, other inputs, and farm capital for rice production. The organic fertilizer users are significantly 3.79% more efficient than non-user, suggesting organic fertilizer substantially contributes to enhancing the technical efficiency of rice in Bangladesh. Moreover, the average treatment effect on the treated (ATETs) in different matching is positively significant and confirms the positive impact of organic fertilizer on rice farming. Government and non-government organizations should encourage farmers to extensively use organic fertilizer for better production through soil health development and reduce the pressure of chemical fertilizer import and use.

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“…From related literature, evidence on farmers' soil management decisions suggests many farmer characteristics of interest in this study (Waithaka et al, 2007;Shiferaw et al, 2009;Parvan, 2011;Chikowo et al, 2014;Borges et al, 2015;Abebe and Debebe, 2019;Mellon-Badi et al, 2020). Kassie et al (2013) group these factors into: 1) farmer characteristics, including age, gender, educational attainment in the household, participation in non-farm work, organic fertiliser experience and risk attitude score, 2) social capital factors, including contact with extension agents, farmers' group membership, access to organic fertiliser policy and training opportunities, and 3) physical resource characteristics such as livestock, carting equipment, plot size and total landholding.…”

Section: Empirical Specification Of the Rasch Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Farmers' background conditions determine attitudes through farm goals, beliefs and perceptions about how easy a technology is to use. In turn, these influence the probability of performing actual practices and the decisions they take (Ridgley and Brush, 2015;Shiferaw et al, 2009;Parvan, 2011;Chikowo et al, 2014;Borges et al, 2015;Abebe and Debebe, 2019).…”

Section: Assessment Of Farmers' Attitudes: Classical Versus Behavioural Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing farmers’ attitudes to, and the behavioural costs of, organic fertiliser practices in northern Ghana: An application of the behavioural cost approach

Daadi

Latacz‐Lohmann

2021

Heliyon

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The use of organic fertiliser to improve soil health is crucial to halting the downward trend of crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa. If this goal is to be achieved, however, farmers require support to adopt organic fertiliser practices that match their attitudes and decision-making capacity. This study evaluated farmers' attitudes to a set of prevailing organic fertiliser practices and their associated behavioural costs (difficulty). The explanatory Rasch model was applied to a set of primary data from 250 farming households in north-east Ghana. The results showed that the average attitude of farmers was much less than the difficulty estimate of an average organic fertiliser practice, although the practices generally showed a moderate difficulty. On average, farmers' attitudes matched just three of sixteen practices on the scale, with most (70 %) of the farmers showing very weak attitudes towards the input. Latent regression results revealed that the weak attitude levels were strongly related to key factors in the farmers' background, including education, resource endowment and access to extension services. Participation in determining policies on organic fertiliser use enhances farmers' knowledge and skills concerning use of the input. Hence, access to such policies can replace education for the less-educated majority of farmers. Thus, training programmes are proposed that develop the average farmer's capacity to adopt these practices in this area, especially the less difficult ones. Supporting farmers with the acquisition of animal-drawn vehicles can also facilitate uptake of the more difficult organic fertiliser practices and increase use of the input.

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Factors affecting use of organic fertilizer among smallholder farmers in Sekela district of Amhara region, Northwestern Ethiopia

Cited by 28 publications

References 7 publications

Smallholder Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change and Adaptation Practices for Maize Production in Eastern Ethiopia

Smallholder Farmers’ Perceptions of Climate Change and Adaptation Practices for Maize Production in Eastern Ethiopia

Do organic fertilizer impact on yield and efficiency of rice farms? Empirical evidence from Bangladesh

Assessing farmers’ attitudes to, and the behavioural costs of, organic fertiliser practices in northern Ghana: An application of the behavioural cost approach

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