Determinants and Welfare Effect of Improved Seed Adoption: A Case of Smallholder Farmers in Sokoru Woreda, Jimma Zone

Abstract

Maize was the most productive cereal crops, produced and consumed by most people in Ethiopia especially in the study area; however, its productivity and life standard of the community in the study area was not much improved because of supply shortage of hybrid maize seed. To overcome such problem, seed producers multiply seed in farmer’s farm by contract farming means. The main objective of this study was to analyze the determinants and welfare effect of improved seed adoption: A case of smallholder farmers in Sokoru Woreda, Jimma Zone. Specifically, analyze the factors that affect farmers’ seed multiplication adoption, to analyze the impact of maize seed multiplication on the participants and assessing performance of market participants in maize seed multiplication. Multistage purposive sampling procedure used to draw samples from the total population. In hence, 294 maize grower farmers selected randomly, from those 109 households are those who participate in maize seed multiplication and considered as treated group. A questionnaire, FGD with farmers in each kebeles and interviews with the key stakeholders and secondary data collected from unpublished and published sources used for the study. Primary data collected from farmers who use improved maize seed in 2011EC cropping year. Descriptive statistics, such as graphs, tables, mean, standard deviation, and percentage as well as t-test, and chi-square test employed. PSM (logit estimation) applied to analyze the impact of maize seed multiplication on households yield and annual income by using computer software called “STATA” version 14.0. The study’s finding indicates that farmers maize seed multiplication adoption was determined by; family size, education level of farmers, land allocated to maize, having livestock, accessibility of commercial fertilizer, access to maize seed, experience on hybrid maize plant, price of hybrid maize seed, frequency of contact with DA and having information on maize seed. The ATT at matching algorithm of kernel bandwidth 0.25 show that maize seed multiplication has positive and significant impact on yield and annual income. From marketing margin analysis, farmers’ gross and net marketing margin was 55.72% and 74.2% respectively, while JCU share was 44% and 33.9%. This shows that seed multiplier farmers have higher share in consumer price. The study recommends; wisely and timely demand assessment, responsible based stakeholders management, supply of modern farming instruments and create crop insurances to mitigate risks