Adoption of sericulture in selected woredas of oromia and southern regional states Ethiopia

Abstract

Silkworm production in Ethiopia is basically started recently in Oromia and Southern regional states. The production status of silk (cocoon) in these areas was 3.36 tons with annual average income of 360000 ETB. From the total of 396 farmers 190 and 206 adopters and non-adopters were selected purposively and simple random sampling technique and interviewed to generate data for the study. 64 focus group and 17 key informant discussions were held to generate qualitative data. A binary logit model for the factors influencing adoption of silk and silkworm production was employed and among the total 7 explanatory, 5 variables were found significant to affect the adoption. These include; sex, age, total land size, total livestock, active family labor force, frequency of contact with DAs and participation on training. But educational status and access to credit were non-significant to sericulture adoption. The major silkworm production challenges were lack of feed source, primitive and unscientific “reeling and weaving” technique, lack of knowledge and skills among the farmers and extensionist, lack of host plant and silkworm seeds, lack of market information, the presence of disease and adverse condition. Despite all the challenges, there are enormous prospects to boost production and quality of silkworm production in the two regions (environmental conduciveness and human capital growth). Enhancing silkworm feeds through introducing improved mulberry and castor plant, establishing seed center and creating proper market are recommended.