This article analyzes the impact of participation in off-farm activities on technical efficiency of maize production in eastern Ethiopia. We combined propensity score matching with a stochastic production frontier model that corrects sample selection bias resulting from unobserved factors that potentially affect both households' decision to participate in off-farm activities and technical efficiency scores that most previous studies do not account for. The probit model results indicate that sex of the household head, literacy of the spouse, agricultural cooperative membership, family size, and access to market information had significant effect on farmers' participation in off-farm activities. In the meantime, it was found that farmers who participated in off-farm activities have a significant technical efficiency gain compared with their non-participant counterparts.

Meeting the challenge of improving rural incomes in Ethiopia will require some form of transformation of the subsistence, low-input and low-productivity farming systems to agricultural commercialization. In the process, commercial production of high value food crops like potato would have been expected. Nonetheless, in the study area, Kombolcha Woreda, the extent to which farmers have commercialized potato production was not known. This study was then undertaken to analyse the extent to which potato was oriented towards the market (denoted by commercialization index) and identify the factors affecting commercialization of potato. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 130 sample households from six sample kebeles. In the study, both primary and secondary data sources were used. Results showed that potato production was lucrative and semi-commercialized i.e. about 59.50% of the potato produce were sold. Moreover, the two limit-Tobit regression model results indicated that non/off farm income, access to information, access to improved seed and access to irrigation affect proportion of the value of potato sold positively and significantly while number of plots affects it negatively. Hence, policies should emphasis on reducing land fragmentation, creating awareness on non/off farm employment, and offer improved seeds and irrigation facilities to farmers and access information.

Celem artykułu było przedstawienie kierunków polskiego handlu zagranicznego produktami rolno-spożywczymi, jego wartości i struktury, a także ocena przewagi komparatywnej w handlu produktami. Przyjęty zakres czasowy dotyczył lat 2008-2013. Analizę przeprowadzono na podstawie danych pochodzących z publikacji Instytutu Ekonomiki Rolnictwa i Gospodarki Żywnościowej -PIB oraz Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego. Wyniki badań świadczą o stałym wzroście wartości obrotów handlu zagranicznego produktami rolno-spożywczymi, a także o stabilnym dodatnim bilansie handlu zagranicznego tymi produktami. W strukturze towarowej największy udział w latach 2008-2013 miały produkty roślinne (średnio 55,37% całkowitego eksportu i 65,08% całkowitego importu). Analizując zmiany wartości wskaźnika Lafaya w handlu poszczególnymi grupami produktów rolno--spożywczych w latach 2008-2013, zaobserwować można w pierwszej kolejności obniżenie wartości tego wskaźnika w przypadku produktów zwierzęcych ogółem (-4,24) przy jednoczesnym wzroście przewagi komparatywnej w eksporcie produktów roślinnych ogółem (+4,00).

Land degradation mainly in the form of soil and nutrient depletion is the prominent problem that the Ethiopian agriculture is facing. Due to this, farmers should be aware of this problem and the necessity of implementing conservation measures. Hence, this study assesses farm households' willingness to participate in soil conservation practice through a Contingent Valuation method in one of the most degraded parts of the country. Double Bounded Dichotomous choice with an Open-ended follow up format was used to elicit the households' willingness to pay using data collected from randomly selected 140 sample households. Results show that the mean willingness to participate in soil conservation practices was about 25 person days per annum and the total aggregate value of soil conservation was computed to be at 975622.73 person days (24390568.3 Birr). Moreover, the Tobit regression model results indicate that the education level of the household head, initial-bid, income, labour shortage and number of days on holiday and social ceremony were important factors influencing the willingness to participate in soil conservation practices. Hence, to improve the participation level, policy should target on supporting adult education, introducing ways to increase farm income and creating awareness on the loss associated with too many days of social ceremonies.