Adoption of Climate-Smart Improved Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] Varieties and Its Impact on Smallholder Farmers’ Income in Karat Zuria District of Konso Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Ethiopia is among the most vulnerable countries in East Africa to the variability of climate change due to its inhabitants’ reliance on rain-fed agriculture. Sorghum is among the popular cereal crops of major economic importance in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government is attempting to increase household income by promoting the adoption of climate-smart improved sorghum varieties. In the Karat Zuria district, however, there is no solid evidence for the adoption and impact of climate-smart improved sorghum varieties on the total annual income of smallholder farmers. As a result, the research was carried out to determine the factors that influence smallholder farmers' adoption of improved sorghum varieties and to assess their impact on smallholder farmers' income in the study area. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 384 representative sample households (184 adopters and 200 non-adopters) for this study. A semi-structured interview schedule, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews were used to gather primary data. The secondary data were gathered via reviewing a variety of documents. A probit model was used to analyze the data and determine the factors that influence the adoption of improved sorghum varieties. Age, sex, education level, family size, farm land size, access to non/off-farm activities, membership of farmers cooperatives, distance to the nearest market, access to credit, access to varieties information from research center and irrigation access were among the 14 independent variables that influence the adoption of improved sorghum varieties. To estimate the average treatment effect on the treated in this study, an endogenous switching regression model was used. According to the findings, the adoption of improved sorghum varieties had a substantial favorable average effect on total annual income of 0.7681, of treatment over control with positive transitional heterogeneity of 0.1257. These results imply that adopting climate-smart improved sorghum varieties increases the average annual household income of adopters by 12.57%. Contents identified major challenges and opportunities of climate smart improved sorghum varieties. It revealed that, adoption of climate smart improved sorghum varieties is crucial in improving farmers’ income. As a result, the study recommends that the local government and other key stakeholders should promote climate smart improved sorghum varieties to help non-adopting smallholder farmers in the study area.