Farmers Intuition on the Promotion of Large Scale Demonstration of Improved Teff Varieties in West Showa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Teff is one of the most important cereal crops in Oromia region in general and in West Showa in particular. It serves as a source of both food and cash income. In order to achieve food security, a lot of attempts have been made by the government in Ethiopia over the last three decades to bring changes in agricultural production through pre scaling up of agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers. The objectives the study was to create smallholder farmer’s awareness and knowledge, enhancing implementation of full packages of teff production technologies, exploring the perceptions towards and share best practices, experiences, and lessons learned from the large-scale demonstration of teff varieties. The Large scale demonstration activity was carried out at Abuna Gindeberet and Gindeberet districts of West Showa zone Oromia region in six selected Kebeles. The sites were selected purposively based on the convenience of the area to the technologies, the potential area for teff production and accessibility for field monitoring and follow-ups. Finally in Abuna Gindeberet, 122 farmers were selected to implement the LSD on 52 ha of land and in Gindeberet district 73 farmers were selected with 40 ha of land for the cluster activity. The recommended amount of fertilizers applied at the recommended stage for the development of the plant. The overall agronomic practices have been implemented as per recommendation. From the LSD of improved teff varieties in both districts average, the higher yield 21.5 qts/ha were gotten from Dagim variety and 18.5 qts/ha yield of Quncho variety were obtained in production year 2019. Farmers raised that improved teff varieties are better high yielder than local ones, more early maturity, better in terms of disease resistance, not lodge than the local, the grain straw are very strong and have the traits of white in color with high performance which are high price difference during marketing than the local one. Therefore, awareness creations, popularizing improved seeds, facilitating credit availability are the important point to improve production and productivity of farmers in the study districts.