| dc.description.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. | en_US |
