Abstract:
Adoption improved agricultural technologies have long been promoted by governments and
development organizations as effective ways to increase farm productivity and reduce poverty.
Encouraging rural households’ to use improved agricultural technologies to increase the
efficiency of production and productivity is among the important policy measures to address the
problem undertaken by the government. However, the adoption of many seemingly beneficial
technologies remains low. The general objective of the study was to assess factors influencing
the adoption of improved agricultural inputs and their impact on the income of small household
farmers in the Konta zone. Both descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and econometric
models were used to analyse the data. The logistic regression model was used to analyse the
impact of technologies and the factors influencing the adoption of agricultural technologies
respectively. The results presented that farmland size, number of oxen, number of livestock, and
distance of household from farm training centre had a significantly influence the adoption level
of improved agricultural technology. On the contrary, the high price of improved technology,
access to credit, and membership in the cooperative associations of household heads had
negatively affects the adoption level of improved farm inputs. Regarding the impact of adopting
improved agricultural technology smallholder farmers who had adopted improved agricultural
technology enhanced their annual crop income by about 15927.12 Birr per year for NNM, which
is significant at 5% probability level, about 14177.854 birr per year for SM which is significant
at 1% probability level, about 15304.172 birr per year for KM which is significant at 1%
probability level and about 15159.602 birr per year for RM which is significant at 1%
probability level. Based on the findings, the study suggests that strengthening the promotion of
full-scale technology adoption will have a vital role in improving the livelihood of households in
the study area. In doing so, managing the possible determining factors that affect the adoption of
improved agricultural technology should be a precondition
