Farm Households' Choice of Crops, Commercialization, and Risk in North Shewa, Ethiopia
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Date
2024-03-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The world is currently facing a challenge due to rising food prices. It is acknowledged that increasing smallholder farmers' productivity and commercializing their operations are important techniques for addressing food security. Ethiopia is utilizing a variety of policies to increase agricultural GDP contribution and achieve food selfsufficiency. Investigating the process of farmers' decisions in relation to risk is more important to connect these policies with the governments' pro-poor efforts. This study focused on crop selection, risk, and mung bean in this aspect. Crop choice is a method for effective land use, stabilizing food prices, and establishing a wholesome food system. A total of 400 smallholder farmers were selected using a Multi-stage random sampling technique from kewot woreda of North Shewa, Ethiopia and surveyed using an interview questionnaire. Crop producing activities covered 72% of the total income. The study also showed that market-related issues including transportation, weak enforcement of land contracts, and shortage of wage laborers during harvesting have a detrimental impact on agricultural income. Additionally, the results showed that households had obtained land through redistribution and acquisition. The study also found that women were insufficiently involved in agricultural decision-making. Mung bean is found in the crop mix of 64% of farmers. The higher profit per hectare is seen in mung beans, although the maximum calorie density per hectare is found in sorghum. Mung beans are also positively correlated with selected commercialization xi indices. Sorghum, teff, onion, and mung bean were identified as the dominating crops, accounting for 95% of all cultivated area, according to the crop choice study. Appropriate econometrics methods were applied to each objectives. According to the crop portfolio choice results, 73% of respondents said they preferred marketing to consuming when choosing their crop portfolio. Despite greater respondent heterogeneity in the risk assessment of onions, mung beans were shown to be a crop with higher risk. Result on the variables that affect how risky farmers' crop portfolio choices are, shows that livestock ownership and education have a positive association with portfolio riskiness whereas irrigation use and being male headed household had a negative correlation. This study's primary contribution is the way it explicitly addresses the risk assessment of the farmer. The main policy conclusion is that, through insurance and crop-specific subsidies that focus on calorie-revenue tradeoffs, farmers can make decisions about their crops without being constrained by risk or their own consumption.
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Crop choice, Risk, Commercialization, Farm decision, Kewot, Ethiopia