Economic Importance of Smallholder Farmers’ Agroforestry Practices at Gombora District, Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia
Paper Details
Economic Importance of Smallholder Farmers’ Agroforestry Practices at Gombora District, Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia
Abstract
Agroforestry practices (AFP) are the integration of trees in farmland that diversifies and sustains production. Whereas, the rapidly escalating population have put the future of Ethiopia’s agricultural land and forest under great threat. So, this study was carried out in the Gombora district to assess the economic importance of smallholder farmers’ agroforestry practices. To achieve the objective, the target sample households were selected in a purposefully multistage sampling process. Then the Primary data were collected from randomly selected households and analyzed by using SPSS version 25. Additionally, the Chi-square test was used at a 5% level of significance and the OLS model was employed to analyze factors influencing the income of smallholder farmers. The survey revealed that out of the sampled household (140) in the study area, (25.7%) of them were used the product of AF tree for income generation whereas (20%) and (14.3%) were used it as a source of food/fruits and fuelwood respectively. Similarly, (15.7%) of the respondents have used the leaves of the AF tree for their cattle as sources of fodders and (12.9%) for medicinal purposes. However, Regression analysis of estimated (OLS) coefficients for family size, land size, livestock holding, and education level, coffee dummy, education dummy, and AF dummy were found to significantly affect the income derived from AFP (p<0.05). Despite the fact, that every farmer did not fully implement the AFP on their farmland. Therefore, the concerned stakeholders should encourage the farmers and create adequate awareness to promote agroforestry technologies in the district.
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