Determinants of farmers’ participation in informal seed production for wheat in Palestine

Abstract

In Palestine, agriculture plays an important role in the livelihoods of the farmer's society. However, most production inputs and supplies including seeds are imported, reducing the agricultural sector's dependence on the commercial imports of inputs is given high priority in the Agricultural Sector. Formal and informal organizations including ministries and universities worked with farmer's societies to produce high quality seeds through informal seed producers, where farmer's participation in informal seed production activities was limited. In order to determine farmer's participation in informal seed production of wheat in Palestine, socio-economic analysis was conducted for 145 farmers. The sample was collected from the major seed production sites in Palestine. Definition of seven technical variables and 13 socio-economic variables was used in data collection. Descriptive statistics like frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviations and inferential statistics such as t-test and Chi-square test were employed to see main difference and association between both the participating categories. The result shows that farmers’ participation in seed production was significantly influenced by seed source, planting date, rainfall and productivity, membership in agricultural association, technology adoption, capacity building, frequency of extension contact, and net returns and profit. The most important reason that the participants want to participate in the seed production is the access to improved input, the increase in rate of net returns, increase in profit and decreased production costs.