Abstract
Cereal crops play an important role in ensuring food security in Africa and providing cash income for most households in the rural areas. In the last two decades, African region has been experiencing a significant decline in per capita food production in which the cereals explaining most of the observed variance in total food production. The decline in cereal production causes food self insufficiency and exposes the smallholder farmers and rural communities as whole to food shortage and famines. Striga weed and stem borers were among the major pests that contribute to the significant decline in cereals production in Ethiopia. In response to these challenges the Agricultural research Institutes both at national and international level has come up with various control strategies. Among these, Push-Pull technology was one of the strategies to cope the significant decline in cereals production. The Technology has been one of the most successful methods and with an advantage of controlling both the stem borers and striga weed simultaneously, while improving soil fertility status. The technology provides an integrated soil and pest management that makes an efficient use of natural resource to increase farm productivity. Even though the result from on farm research experiments and pre-extension demonstration revealed the positive effect of the push pull technology in improving production and productivity of cereal crops in different parts of Ethiopia (Boset, Mieso, Habro and Daro Labu), perception and acceptance of the wider smallholder farmers for the technology was not evaluated. Hence, this study was intended to analyze perception and acceptance of the smallholder farmers for the push pull technology in Habro and Daro Labu districts of western hararghe zone of Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. Ten kebeles and 81 farmers implementing the push-pull technology were purposively selected and interviewed using structured questionnaire. <i>Both primary and secondary data used to attain the research objectives. The structured questionnaire was a primary data collection tool. Collected primary data analyzed using the Statistical Package of Social Science software (SPSS).</i> From the total sample farm households, about 77.8% of them were fully agree and 9% of them were agree with the idea that push-pull technology is efficient in controlling stem borer and improve the production and productivity of the cereals (maize and sorghum) in the study area. Smallholder farmers perceive benefits of the push pull technology through its role in improving the cereal yield by improving soil fertility, maintaining soil moisture, reducing soil erosion and the negative effect of striga.
Highlights
Background and JustificationCereal crops are crucially important to food security in Africa, providing the daily calories and cash income for most households in the rural areas
From the above discussion we understand that, farmer to farmer information flow is the main pathway for the adoption of push-pull technology in the study area
As the result of this study shows, from total sample farm households, some (42%) of the sample farm households were raised their comment on provision of training for farmers and DAs for a successful implementation of the technology, provision of the technology (Desmodium and Bracharia seed) on time, availability of improved sorghum to be implemented with the push-pull technology, spacing to be used between the intercrop plant and Desmodium and monitoring and evaluation of the technology
Summary
Cereal crops are crucially important to food security in Africa, providing the daily calories and cash income for most households in the rural areas. In the last two decades, African region has been experiencing a decline in the per capita food production, with cereal explaining most of the observed variance in total food production [3]. This instability in cereal production has continuously affected food self sufficiency in the region exposing the communities to food shortages. The productivity of cereal crops in Africa has continued to dwindle subjecting most rural households to abject poverty
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