Abstract
Despite the recent efforts to increase agricultural productivity in Ethiopia, food insecurity remains a major challenge in the country. Improving smallholders´ productivity requires the adoption of suitable agricultural technologies and practices. Previous researches highlighted the importance of socio-economic factors; but widely overlooked the role of social capital in technology adoption and its potential to create collective actions, reduce transaction costs, relax supply side constraints, and disseminate information. Using socio-economic data of 398 farming households, the study assessed social capital as a determinant for soil and water conservation practices (SWC) such as terraces, bunds and agro-forestry as well as adopting productivity enhancing technologies (PET) such as fertilizers and improved high yielding seed varieties applying a probit model. The result showed that members of Iddir (informal funeral group) were more likely to adopt SWC (18.2%). For the case of PET, Iddir members were 12.8% less likely to adopt. Being members of Jarsumma (informal conflict resolution) increased the likelihood of SWC and PET adoption by 12.87% and 17.8%, respectively. Therefore, technology transfer should consider different types of social capital as an alternative policy option to the prevailing top down approaches in order to improve smallholder livelihoods.
Highlights
Agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the economy of Ethiopia [12]
This paper focuses on analyzing different types of social capital that exist in the farming community of Ethiopia and their influences on improved soil and water conservation practices (SWC) and productivity enhancing technologies (PET)
Agriculture is a backbone for the economy of Ethiopia with a major contribution to the livelihood of Ethiopian people
Summary
Agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the economy of Ethiopia [12]. The sector is vital for food security at the national level and accounts for the livelihoods of nearly 85% of the population. The major part of the sector consists of smallholder farmers operating on less than 2 hectares of land [6]. Realizing the sectors low productivity problems, research findings by Dadi et al [12], Wossen et al [39], or Teklewold et al [35,36] suggested that the adoption of agricultural technologies by smallholder farmers is a promising alternative to get out of the poverty trap. Wossen et al [39] found an adoption rate of 4.7% for land management practices (bunds), and Teklewold et al [36] reported less than 10% for the adoption of productivity enhancing technologies such as fertilizers
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