Abstract
The agricultural crop is a backbone in Ethiopia since the country's economy is mainly dependent on agriculture, which is dominated by subsistence smallholder farmers who are partially integrated into the market. The objective of this study was to identify the determinants of crop productivity among smallholder farmers in Haramaya distinct, Eastern Ethiopia. A two-stage random sampling procedure was employed to detect a sample containing 260 smallholder households in the study area. Data was collected through semi-structured questionnaire schedules administered to the selected household farmers. The features of smallholder farmers were analyzed through descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression models. The results indicated that the length of farming experience of the household head, number of economically active members in family, amount of organic fertilizer applied, irrigated land area, and soil fertility status of farmland were the significant determinants of agricultural crop productivity. To increase the production and productivity of smallholder farms, the farmers were provided with land irrigation. Based on these findings, the study recommends the provision of organic fertilizer to farmers. Policies should also target supplying improved technology and improved seed to enhance agricultural crop production in Ethiopia.
Highlights
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the conspicuous cereal crops in the world, belonging to the family of Poaceae (Gramineae)
These outcomes were in line with those reported by Khaliq, Iqbal and Basra (1999), Hussain et al (2001) and Soomro et al (2009), which showed that wheat sowing at a vast seeding rate produced greater plant height and the shortest plant was recorded for the lowest seeding rate
These results did not coincide with the findings of Mohammad and Maqsuda (2017) who reported that seed rate increase resulted into a slight rise in the height of the plants, this could be because of environmental conditions and the genetic make-up of the cultivar used in both the studies
Summary
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the conspicuous cereal crops in the world, belonging to the family of Poaceae (Gramineae). Wheat is a staple food stuff used to make flour for steamed breads, leavened, flat, cookies, biscuits, breakfast cereal, cake, pasta, fermented alcoholic beverages (beer), noodles, and bio-fuel (Ibukun and Moyin, 2018), used by 7.592 billion individuals residing in 43 countries of the world. It contributes 30 percent to whole grain demand of the world and stand at the top among the cereal crops. Various issues are involved in the low production of this crop, such as edaphic properties, climatic situations, lack of technological knowledge, shortage of water supply for irrigation, and improper usage of fertilizer doses (Ullah et al, 2018)
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