Abstract:
Soybean is one of the most important pulse crops categorized under oil crop. Ethiopia has an enormous potential for production of pulse crops in general and soybean in particular and it is also among the most important export crops. Despite the high production potential and the economic importance of the crop, soybean producers particularly small scale farmers did not economically benefited significant amount from its production, as such low production and productivity, which is mainly associated with poor adoption of improved technologies and poor marketing system. To this end, the objectives of this study were: to examine and document the experience of adoption of improved soybean varieties, analyze the determining factors that affect the adoption of improved soybean production. Two stage sampling procedure were followed to select rural peasant association and households for the study. Four rural peasant associations were selected purposively and 120 household heads were selected randomly using probability proportional to size sampling. Semi-Structured interview schedule were developed, pre-tested and used for collecting the essential quantitative data for the study from the sampled households. A focus group discussion on soybean production was used to generate qualitative data. In addition, secondary data were collected from district office of agriculture and rural development on the production of soybean. The focuses of the study was the importance of demographic, socio economic and institutional factors that affect the adoption of improved soybean varieties in Bako areas. Therefore, taking the specific characteristics of farmers into account in introducing and promoting soybean varieties may help policymakers and development interventions to come up with solution that can addresses farmers’ varieties adoption problems. |
