Contribution of Agroforestry Home gardens to Household Income Generation in Boloso Bombe District, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The present study was conducted in Boloso Bombe rural district during August to December 2016 with the main objective of determining the category of home gardens and assessing their contributions to household income generation. The study involved two altitudinal villages and sixty-one households from each village, all selected randomly. Data collection was done through field surveys using relevant social survey methods. The findings indicated that 99% of the communities in Boloso Bombe rural district practice agroforestry home gardens. Four types of agroforestry home garden technology practices are found in the study area. From them, 70.3% of household practice trees/shrubs/annual crops/animals’ type of home garden technology. There was significant difference on home garden technology practices in generating income at 5% level of significance.R2 value in the regression output indicated that 62.5% of the total variations of the income were explained by independent variables land size and home garden technological practices. The findings showed that on the average, home gardens contributed over 34% of household annual income. With respect to the factors that motivate the practice of agroforestry home garden technologies, the findings showed that access to sufficient income throughout the year with diverse products in their households were the main factors that motivate them to use agroforestry home garden technologies. However, land shortage, low capital, crop competition and unreliable markets were together the main factors which negatively affected the contribution of agroforestry home gardens to income generation in the area.