Abstract
Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the possible food security crops which provide high yield and quality product in short period of time. Due to the lack of clearly known best varieties of it, its adoption to farmers is very less. The present study was conducted to assess the type of potato farmers prefer, adoption of released potato varieties and its management practices in west and Kellem Wollega Zones, Ethiopia. Survey was carried out in Ayira, Yubdo, Hawa Gelan, Dale Wabara and Dale Sadi woreda where four kebeles were purposively selected based on the potato farming potential. Open and close ended interview questions were generated for 384 selected representative farmers. Data was analyzed by SPSS software. The result showed that, 97.6% of the farmers have willing to farm potato. 47.3% and 22.7% of them experienced to farm local potato (land race) and released potato varieties, respectively. Farmers use landrace potato due to less awareness to released potato and accessibility of local potato. 70.1% of farmers responded there is no adoption of released potato in the area. Factors hindering potato farming in the study area are potato disease and lack of released potato. The least method used by farmers is use of resistant potato. Generally, there is scarcity of released potato seeds indicating that there is no its adoption in the study site. This problem is enforcing farmers to use local potato varieties which may not resist above stated hindering factors and make farmers to face food insecurity problems and economic reduction. Therefore, improving locally existing potato or attracting the improved potato varieties from elsewhere to the zones may be a solution of its adoption.
Highlights
Potato fills gap of food scarcity in rural areas of SubSaharan Africa since it provides many calories and nutrients
The least method used by farmers is use of resistant potato
Yield of potato in different parts of Ethiopia is vary i.e., may be high or low due to different factors especially as a result of late blight diseases caused by Phytophtora infestans and bacterial wilt caused by Ryzoctonia solanacearum
Summary
Potato fills gap of food scarcity in rural areas of SubSaharan Africa since it provides many calories and nutrients. It is grown in wide range of agro-ecological conditions (1). It is high-potential food security crop which provides high yield per unit area in a short period of time (2). There are more than 30 released potato varieties which provide high yield and resistant to late blight disease than the locally cultivated one. It is highly recommended if farmers accept it for cultivation to improve its productivity. The adoption of released potato varieties is very lower in most potato growing areas of the country where new varieties have been disseminated (4)
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