Browsing by Author "Tassew, Mulugeta"

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    Education, Training and Agricultural Technology Adoption in Resource Poor Areas of North Wollo: The Case of Meket Woreda
    (A.A.U, 1999-06) Tassew, Mulugeta; Demeke, Mulat (Dr)
    Inspite of its important contribution to the Ethiopian economy at large, the performance of agriculture was disappointing for decades. Cognizant of this fact, Ethiopia is now implementing Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization (ADLI) strategy which concentrates on accelerating growth through disseminating better performing crop and livestock technologies to farm households. Differences on how quickly producers adopt such technologies can be explained by differences in human capital and differences in knowledge of the new technology. Having this idea in mind, a field survey was conducted in one of the resource poor areas of north wollo (Meket Woreda) to identify the factors that influence the use of improved crop technologies and ownership of livestock particularly cow and sheep among farmers in the woreda. This being the general aim of the Study, the chief objective was to see the impact of human capital variables on the adoption of these technologies. To this end, the probit model was fitted on primary cross sectional data collected from 144 farm households. An attempt is also made to see whether or not crop technologies are profitable or not by calculating the so called value cost ratio. The result obtained from the estimated models showed that the education level of household head, family size, participation in agricultural training programs and farm income significantly affect the adoption of fertilizer and/or improved seeds (Crop technologies). On the other hand, cow ownership is found to be influenced by total cultivated land, farm income and access to livestock credit. Similarly, sheep ownership is influenced by total cultivated land, age of household head, distance from main road and agro-climatic condition. The calculated value cost ratio indicated that income from barley production can be tripled if farmers apply the recommended rate of fertilizer on a hectar of land sawn with local variety of barley. Similarly, wheat production can be doubled if improved seed is mixed with fertilizer. Policies recommended from the findings of the study include infrastructual development dealing with education, strengthening agricultural training programmes and research activities and provision of livestock credit particularly to resource poor farmers. It is hoped that, such types of government action would improve agricultural production of the country in general and of the study area in particular.