No abstract

Groundnut is one the five widely cultivated oilseed crops in Ethiopia. However, the subsector has been overlooked yet by development program interventions and analysis of its technical as well as economic is lacking far behind. Hence, this study presents of groundnut production in East Hararghe zone of Oromia regional state. It focuses on technical relationships between groundnut output and different inputs, economic resources use efficiency and cost benefit analysis. The result for the generated from 86 randomly sampled groundnut farm households at different stage by means of structured and semi-structured questionnaire. From the total of seven explanatory variables to be estimated by using Cobb-Douglas function, quantity of seed labor and livestock in tropical livestock unit were significant at different significance level and they showed positive effect on groundnut output. The economic efficiency of resource used showed the seed, fertilizer and labor were underutilized and land was over utilized.

This article attempts to identify factors determining Fairtrade coffee marketing channel choice and its effect on income of coffee farmers in Jimma zone, based on primary data generated from 153 randomly sampled respondents. The Probit model result ascertain that membership of cooperatives, literacy, access to market information and small-scale coffee farm enhances but remoteness from cooperatives reduces the probability of farmer's participation in Fairtrade coffee market. Furthermore, OLS model result confirms that coffee farming experience, larger coffee farm, and participation in training lead to increase but access to credit lead to decrease income earning of farmers from coffee. The finding also designates that Fairtrade marketing participation yields considerable income over traditional markets. Based on these, policy measures that advance farmers' capacity via training, physical access to market places, market information services, participation cooperatives and expansion of Fairtrade markets will lead to increase earning of farmers' from coffee sector.

Given the multi-benefits, enset cultivation has been continuously underutilized in Ethiopia. We assess best practices, processing technologies, environmental maintenance, multi-benefits of enset and its potency in hunger reduction in Ethiopia by reviewing evidence on good farm practices, improved technologies, sustainability, hunger reduction, inputs cost, and yields advantage of enset. The review results identify those best practices that optimize enset yield, technologies that facilitate extension services, processing and food qualities of enset. Moreover, we find that enset is a first-rated climate-smart crop, superior hunger solution because of its apparent capability to endure long periods (more than 5 years) of drought, highest yield, energy food supply, and costs advantages. In contrast, its long-period maturity, cultural perceptions, and little development policy attention given to enset limit its expansion. Therefore, exploring and creating universal access mechanism of early maturing and high-yielding varieties, processing technologies and mobile-based advices, involving best practices of enset in regular agricultural extension services, changing social perceptions optimize enset yield and production thereby it contributes environmental sustainability and cuts hunger challenges.

Despite numerous efforts to introduce sustainable farm and environmental practices (SFEPs), such as pruning, soil erosion control, and water pollution abatement measures), their adoption by smallholder farmers is awfully low in Ethiopia. As a result, smallholder coffee farmers in the country remain in poverty traps even if there is room to enjoy coffee returns by doubling the yield by implementing sustainable practices. On the other hand, most previous coffee sustainability studies focus on the economic, livelihood, and poverty alleviation impact of private sustainability standard schemes. Despite the holistic advantages of the adoption of bundled SFEPs over individual adoption practices, it has been overlooked by earlier scholars in the country. In southwest Ethiopia, few farmers applied sustainable coffee farm practices (particularly pruning, stumping, the use of fertilizer, and mulching), and the yields gained by the farmers are quite low. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the factors affecting the adoption of bundled SFEPs and their intensity at the farm household level in southwest Ethiopia based on cross-sectional data obtained from 153 sampled coffee farm households for the 2019/2020 cropping season. The study results showed that the farmers’ adoption of different SFEPs depended on farm and management characteristics (total size of coffee holdings, multiple plots, remoteness of coffee farm, hired labor, and farming experience), socioeconomic variables (literacy, household size, and training), and Fairtrade coffee certification. Likewise, the intensity of SFEPs implementation is influenced by literacy and hired labor. Providing training and supplementing coffee farmers with farm equipment used for SFEPs, promoting small-scale mechanization options to address seasonal labor constraints, as well as strengthening Fairtrade organizations will facilitate the adoption of multiple SFEPs by coffee farmers in the country.