Modern Agricultural Input Adoption Under Production Risk: The Case of Fertilizer Application In Saesi Tsaeda-Emba Woreda, Eastern Zone of Tigray, Ethiopia
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Date
2008-09
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Addis Ababauniversity
Abstract
Empirical studies give evidence that farming is a risky activity, especially under
rain fed agriculture characterized by erratic rainfall. In such conditions, production
risks (crop fai/ure) arise mainly from uncertainties in climate, which is
uncontrollable by farmers. Moreover, retum on modem inputs such as fertilizer is
unpredictable, because of exogenous variables such as weather, pests, and crop
diseases. Consequently, production risk is one of the major constraints in the rain
fed agriculture that can delay or avoid technology adoption. It has been argued
that risk aversion makes farmers to avoid or hesitate to use modem agricultural
inputs like fertilizer. However, empirical evidence on farmers risk aversion and
fertilizer use is limited in Ethiopia. Most adoption studies have not explicitly
addressed the issue in the country. The intention of the study was to examine if
risk aversion has an adverse effect on fertilizer adoption and if risk aversion is
associated with household's wealth status. To this end an empirical analysis was
done using descriptive and econometric analysis in comparative fashion between
adopters and non- adopters of fertilizer. Using the moments based approach it
was tried empirically examine the relative risk premium related to fertilizer use
among farmers. The findings showed that the farmers' exhibit absolute ArrowPratt
risk aversion towards the use of fertilizer, i.e., risk aversion and fertilizer use
was negatively related. The implication is that when considering promoting
modem agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, it is important to assess the variance
of income and its implications on risk preferences. Another notable finding was
that credit access and extension service significantly influenced the likelihood of
. fertilizer adoption in the area. However, the problem was not a mere availability
of fertilizer credit, but lack of fina-ncial capacity to purchase inputs as a key '
_constraint to adoption and. fear of repayirieni of. credit if crop damage OCCU(§,
which is common feature ofthe:·study arfFa. -Thus, the input supply policyshoiild ' .
be revised in the context of farmers' constraints
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Keywords
Case of Fertilizer Application