Row Planting under Inter and Mixed Cropping Systems as Sustainable Agricultural Practice in Damot Gale District, Wolaita, Ethiopia
Nigatu Gebremedhin Enamo
Department of Natural Resource Management, Wolkite University, Ethiopia
Submission: July 08, 2019; Published: August 01, 2019
*Corresponding author: Nigatu Gebremedhin Enamo, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Department of Natural Resource Management, Wolkite University, Ethiopia
How to cite this article: Nigatu Gebremedhin Enamo. Row Planting under Inter and Mixed Cropping Systems as Sustainable Agricultural Practice in Damot Gale District, Wolaita, Ethiopia. Int J Environ Sci Nat Res. 2019; 20(4): 556045. DOI:10.19080/IJESNR.2019.20.556045
Abstract
Although the nation has made tremendous effort in transforming the economy, the sector of agriculture has not shown significant change contributing even less than the service sector to the GDP in recent years. Poverty remained a challenge where 25.6% living under poverty line. The problem is further aggravated by long rooted backward agricultural practices with late and slow adoption of improved technologies. This study examined the farmers practices of row planting under inter and mixed cropping systems in Damot Gale District of Wolaita Zone. Quantitative research approach has been followed to assess farmers adoption of row planting under inter and mixed cropping systems. A multi-stage sampling technique was applied with first activity of purposive selection of 3 kebeles out of 31 kebeles considering farm size and settled population density. 304 household heads practicing mixed and inter cropping practices were systematically selected for questionnaire survey. Binomial logistic regression was then applied to assess farmers adoption of row planting under inter and mixed cropping systems. The model was explained between 8.6% (Cox and Snell R square) and 14.4 % (Nagelkerke R square) of the variance in adoption status and correctly classified 83.2 % of cases. The findings revealed that extension contact (scoring an odds ratio of 7. 27) and training (odds of 2.287) imposed significant positive impact on adoption of row planting under inter and mixed farming practices. Therefore, greater attention should be payed towards extension service and farmers training to diffuse the practice among farmers in the district.
Keywords: Row planting; Binomial regression; Adoption; Damot gale
Abbrevations: CSA: Central Statistical Agency; DGWOA: Damot Gale Woreda Office of Agriculture; EMFED: Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development; ETB: Ethiopian Birr; GDP: Gross Domestic Product
Introduction
Background of the study
Ethiopia has achieved strong economic growth and expanded social services over the past decades. According to the data from EMFED, economic growth averaged 10.5 with real per capita GDP more than doubled between fiscal year 2010/11-2016/17 ranging from $32 billion to $81 billion in the respective years [1].
Although the nation has made tremendous effort in transforming the economy, the sector of agriculture has not shown significant change contributing only 36.3% of the GDP even less than the service sector (39.3%). Rural poverty remained still a challenge covering 25.6% of population living under national poverty line [1]. Small farm agriculture practiced by 57 % of Ethiopian households is performing poor and is still difficult to transform it from the subsistent level [1]. As cited in Ethiopian National Human Development Report by UNDP, Bezu and Holden [1,2] stated that, landlessness is reported a very critical problem now days where households own averaged land size of 1.22 hectares and majority of youths do not have their own land despite their constitutional right. This problem is also witnessed in the study district. Damot Gale district is the second most densely populated administrative structure in Ethiopia where 746 persons resides in a single kilometer square area of rural land [3]. Nigatu & Tsetadirgachew [4], revealed that average per capita land holding in the district was 0.25 with the chance of fragmentation through inheritance every 24 years. Their finding is in line with data obtained from DGWOA.
Agricultural technologies whether indigenous or adopted are therefore, essential in transforming the stagnant and severely endangered Ethiopian small farm agriculture. Appropriate application of cropping system and application of agricultural supplements can support agricultural productivity of farmers living under land scarcity [4,5]. According to World Bank [6], adoption and proper utilization of yield increasing technologies supported the Asians to achieve the goals of Green Revolution. Similarly, the study by Berihun, Bihon & Kibrom [7] revealed that, farmers who applied chemical fertilizer earned greater income in ETB than non-adopters in southern Tigray. Moreover, Nigatu & Tsetadirgachew [4], on their study found that farmers who attended training produced more organic compost than non-attendants. Well managed tillage practices are also reported to have greater contribution in reducing soil erosion [8]. As reported in FAO [9], Pretty et al, 2008 pointed that when sustainable agricultural practices are adopted, yield can be increased by 79%.
Among the major agronomic practices, row planting is among the newly technologies in fixed to the farming practices of farmers by Ethiopian government [10]. Farmers in Ethiopia or anywhere in world are expected by agricultural researchers to be knowledge-intensive rather than being input intensive [11]. In this regard, various newly introduced technologies have been adopted at varying scale among farmers in Ethiopia [12]. In the 2013 cropping season, farmers applied 71%, 66%, 60%, 52%, 46% & 29% of potato, wheat, maize, teff, barley and sorghum technology packages respectively in Ethiopia [12]. Although innovations are being mainstreamed to the farming community, adoption levels are still determined by range of factors. According to Nigatu & Tsetadirgachew (2013); Panell D.G et al. [13], EGWU & Emeka [14]; M. Z. et al. [15]; socio-economic, individual & institutional factors determine adoption of soil management technologies. Furthermore, resource endowment of farmers and income generating capacity have been found to have significant effect in determining the adoption of agricultural technologies in Ethiopia [15-19]. More recent studies are also assessing the impact of social networks on adoption of newly technologies [20].
Like many other agronomic practices, row planting is determined by range of factors. Row planting is an agronomic practice where crops are planted in row of fixed width allowing easy transportation and supply of water and nutrients [21]. Many studies reported that farmers, adopting row planting technology produced greater production [22-24]. Although it is an old finding, Singh G et al. [25], reported that row planting has significant impact on the yields of maize and soya bean.
Mainstreaming row planting as sustainable agricultural practice in various agronomic practices commenced few years ago by Ethiopian government. Mixed or intercropping is among commonly practiced type of cropping systems in which row planting as a technique can be practiced. The farmers in Wolayta and Damot Gale in particular are well-known by intercropping and mixed cropping systems where now government introduced row planting. Hence, this study tries to examine the farmers level of adoption of row planting under inter and mixed cropping agronomic systems as sustainable agricultural practices in Damot Gale District of Wolayta Zone, Ethiopia.
Materials and Methods
The study area
Damot Gale is one of the district divisions of Wolayta Zone in Southern Ethiopia having areal land size of 255.54 square kilometer which is about 6.07% of the total land surface of Wolaita zone [26]. The district is bordered by Duguna Fango district in the north east, Damot Pulasa in the west, Sodo Zuria in the south, Damot Woyide in the south east, and Hadiya zone in the north. The district is along the major road from Addis Ababa to Wolaita Sodo. It is absolutely located within the coordinates of 6º32´24´´N and 7º7´30´´N latitude and 37º44´53´´E and 37º56´24´´ E of longitude. Mount Damot is the highest peak in the nearby having altitude of 2800 meters above sea level with in intermediate agro climatic zone of Woina Dega and Kola (Figure 1).
Research approach and sampling
This study applied mixed approach research with ambition to answer both qualitative and quantitative aspects of problem under investigation [27]. Although both quantitative and qualitative techniques have been applied in this study, the study bends towards quantitative approach [28].
Sampling commonly depends on sampling error, level of precision, homogeneity of population and formulas used to determine the size of study population [27,28]. However, most commonly size of population, type and objective of the study are the bases for sample size determination [27,29]. A multi-stage sampling technique was applied for this study with first activity of selecting 3 kebeles out of 31 kebeles based on purposive sampling considering farm size and population density. After careful identification of study kebeles, the list of households from selected kebeles was used to pick out samples based on the systematic random sampling.
The total population of the district was 149,115 according to estimate of 2017 based on CSA [3] data. There were total of 29,119 households in the district. The sum of households in the selected kebeles was 2984 from which samples has been drawn. Depending on the statistical data obtained from CSA and DGWAO, 10.18 % of the total households i.e. 304 household heads were selected for this study. The sample was once again proportionally divided into study kebeles [29]. Subsequently, 81(from Akabilo), 111(Obe Jage) and 112 (Wandara Boloso) households were considered for questionnaire survey.
Data collection techniques
Quantitative data, particularly survey data were collected using questionnaire checklist. Validity of the questionnaire was tested through pilot survey prior the actual survey to reject confusing questions from the questionnaire. After the pilot survey, the main data collection was started on February 25 and finalized on April 3, 2018. During the survey, the data collectors were directed and supervised by the researcher. Due to the fact that, enumerators were agricultural experts of the selected kebeles having close contact with selected samples, the questionnaire survey was finalized on its planned schedule.
Data organization and analysis
Both qualitative and quantitative data collected from the field were organized in away suitable for data analysis. Questionnaire checklists collected were cleaned up, coded, organized and made ready for analysis on SPSS version 19 package. Binomial logistic regression was applied to examine small farm holders’ practice of row planting as sustainable agricultural practice under inter and mixed cropping systems in Damot Gale district.
The binomial logistic regression
The binomial logistic regression was employed to investigate the effect of explanatory variables on the likelihood of adoption of row planting technology under intercropping practices as sustainable agricultural practices among farmers in Damot Gale District. The explanatory variables were believed to predict the likelihood of adoption of row planting were;
Χ1: Size of land
X2: Farmers Training
X3: Availability of TV, Radio
X4: Educational status
X5: Age
X6: Sex
X7: Frequency of extension contact.
Model specificationThe binomial logistic regression: “adoption of row planting”
The objective of this research was to assess factors determining the adoption of row planting as sustainable agronomic practices under intercropping and mixed cropping agricultural practices.
Since the adoption of row planting is a dichotomous with option of either adoption or non-adoption, the binomial logistic regression was applied as the most appropriate tool to investigate how each independent variable affects the probability of the occurrence of events [30]. In this regard the probability of farmers practicing row planting is assumed dummy and described as;
Where is the dependent variable (row planting) with probability of adoption or non-adoption. The distribution of is a Bernoulli distribution and can be written as;
The binomial logistic regression model expected to explore the socio-economic, institutional and spatial factors influencing the adoption of row planting is expected to determine the degree and direction of relationship between dependent and independent variables in the adoption of row planting at the household level. Hence, row planting is expected to be influenced by set of independent variables and specified as follows:
Where the subscript i is ith observation in the sample. P is the probability that a farmer adopts row planting and (1-P) is the probability that a farmer does not adopt row planting. β0 is the intercept term and β1, β2…βk are the coefficients of the independent variables X1, X2… Xk.
Results and Discussion
Binomial logistic regression was performed to assess the impact of number factors on the likelihood of adopting row planting under the inter and mixed cropping systems among the investigated households. However, before the actual computation of logistic regression, preliminary test of validity of the model was made. The test was done to check out whether the basic assumptions of binomial logistic regression such as sample size, multicollinearity, and outlier are considered. According to Pallant (2007), small sample size for dependent variable having large number of predictors is not recommended for binomial logistic regression analysis.
Therefore, sample size was considered before undertaking the actual regression analysis. On the other hand, multicollinearity test for the predicting variables was performed and fortunately found that, there are no predicting variables having strong correlation (r ≥ +0.7) with other predictors. Therefore, no variable is omitted or formed composite. Besides, collinearity diagnosis was performed to check the validity of tolerance of collinearity statistics and thus no variable having tolerance value less than 0.1 was found. This is because variables having tolerance values less than 0.1 witnesses the prevalence of strong correlation among the predicting variables. In addition to this, the prevalence of outliers was checked by goodness of fit of the model (see Table 1).
The model explained on Table 1 contained seven explanatory variables. Out of the seven predictors, the model contained only two variables which are statistically significant, χ2 (7, N=303) = 27.361, p<0.001, indicating the model was able to distinguish between the investigated household head who adopted and not adopted row cropping on their farmland. The model as a whole explained between 8.6% (0.086) (Cox and Snell R square) and 14.4 % or (0.144) (Nagelkerke R square) of the variance in adoption status and correctly classified 83.2 % of cases.
Model presentation
Based on the result of logistic regression presented on Table 1, model representing the relationship between independent variables and the predictors has been drawn. Accordingly, the adoption of row planting under the intercropping and mixed cropping system is modeled as follows:
Farmers training and frequency of extension contact made a unique statistically significant contribution to the model. The strongest predictor of determining adoption was frequency of extension contact, recording an odds ratio of 7.27. This indicated that farmers who had a usual contact with extension service providers were over 7 times more likely to adopt row cropping than those having no extension contact. Anne M Cafer & J Sanford Rikoon [17], on their study in South Wollo revealed that farmers who had extension support adopted row planting of Teff. EGWU & Emeka [14] revealed similar result that poorer practice of extension service hampered the adoption of innovations among farmers in Delta State of Nigeria. Studies in arid areas of Tunisia also revealed similar result [15]. On the other hand, farmers training has also an odds ratio of 2.28. This implies that farmers who took training regarding soil and water conservation were over 2 times more likely to adopt row planting than those having no training regarding soil and water conservation. Access to participate in training can let farmers to have better information regarding field management [15,18]. The situation in Sub- Saharan Africa which goes in line with this finding witness’s direct relationship between productivity loss and capacity to innovate which can be enhanced through continuous follow up and trainings [31]. Their capacity to innovate in a social, economic, political and cultural context is seen as decisive to reverse the trend of declining soil fertility. Similarly, Stuart R D Ferrer & Nieuwoudt WL [19] on their study in South Africa; found that farmers who get frequent extension services adopted row cropping technology better as compared to those having no extension contact.
Conclusion
Row planting is one of widely practiced recent technology by the agricultural households in the district. It has been introduced nationally as a management practice since 1997 and diffused to farmers by the Agricultural and Rural Development office. Though row planting is introduced some eight years ago, farmers adopts at different category of level. The practice is affected by set of factors and were identified using binomial logistic regression. Extension service determines the diffusion of row planting technology in the district. Farmers training on soil and water management is also important factor letting farmers know about row planting technologies in the district.
Therefore, the government has to support the extension service and provision of frequent training programs on benefits and implementation of row planting under the inter cropping and mixed cropping systems and therefore the diffusion of the technology will be more successful.
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