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Low agricultural commercialisation due to low productivity and a lack of access to and use of improved seeds are common features of smallholders in the Ethiopian highlands. Seed-producer cooperatives (SPCs) were established and strengthened in these highlands to facilitate smallholders' access to improved seed. Using survey data collected from 425 randomly selected smallholders, a full-information maximum likelihood endogenous switching regression (ESR) model and a propensity score-matching (PSM) technique were employed to estimate the impact of membership of seed-producer cooperatives on the output and input commercialisation of members and non-members. The results show that farm size, availability of extension services, household size, farm income, participation in other farmers' organisations, access to training, and education of the household head are key factors associated with cooperative membership. The results from the ESR and PSM models are consistent and show that being a member had a positive and statistically significant impact on tef and wheat farmers' output and input commercialisation. Non-members' status in output and input commercialisation would have been improved if they had been members of seed-producer cooperatives. The results indicate that joining seed-producer cooperatives has proven to be a beneficial approach for farmers, as it minimises transaction costs and facilitates farmers' access to input and output markets for tef and wheat crops. The results show that, if farmers were not part of SPCs, the commercialisation of their tef and wheat output would have decreased by 43 and 31 percentage points, respectively. Furthermore, if non-members had joined the seed cooperatives, their tef and wheat output commercialisation levels would have increased by 19.5 and 13.3 percentage points, respectively. The findings imply that governments and development partners should deliver training for SPC members on quality seed production and management in their farm operations and assist SPCs in setting up seed storage facilities and acquiring winnowing machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy. Barley, including food and malt barley, is one of the major cereals produced by smallholder farmers. Though malt barley is the fastest-growing industry, demand is outpacing supply. As a result, Ethiopia is a net importer of raw malt barley. Recently, contract farming was implemented to address this issue in malt barley-potential areas. It has been one of the strategies utilized to enhance the commercialization of malt barley and replace imported malt barley, besides solving production and marketing challenges. The predicted results also include satisfying domestic malt barley demand, enhancing the welfare of smallholder farmers, and conserving the nation's foreign exchange. Although not thoroughly investigated, the research area has a low rate of CF participation and a low malt barley yield. Furthermore, previous research has focused on the CF impact of income, food security, and yield indicators of welfare, but no attention has been devoted to the implications of asset accumulation, which is a greater long-term indicator of welfare. Given the issues and research gaps identified, this study seeks to evaluate the impact of CF on malt barley farmers' asset accumulation in Northwestern Ethiopia. The data were collected from 398 samples in two districts, selected using multistage sampling techniques. The endogenous switching regression (ESR) model was used to account for bias coming from both observable and unobservable sources. For malt barley farmers, the average treatment effect on treated and untreated was 9652.7ETB and 7417.3ETB, respectively, and was significant at 1%. The base heterogeneities for CF participation and non-participation were 886ETB and −1349.4ETB, respectively. The average transitional heterogeneity was 2235.4ETB and statistically significant at 1%. Consequently, malt barley CF participation has a positive association with asset accumulation; this result supports transaction cost economic theory. Cooperative membership, off-farm employment, and age were all positively associated with the propensity to increase asset accumulation. The finding also reveals that land affected participants, whereas credit, household size, and farming experiences had a significant and positive effect on non-participants' assets. This shows that the asset accumulation of the two groups was determined by common variables with different magnitudes and different variables. Therefore, the concerned bodies should consider these heterogeneities to strengthen and improve the CF participation of malt barley farmers as long as they are adjusted to local conditions. Furthermore, spillover effects of CF on other sectors (other crops and the environment) and non-participants should be considered to check whether it has negative or positive external effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in most developing countries, farm households in Ethiopia are often engaged in several income diversification activities to mitigate several risks and uncertainties faced by agriculture and address poverty and food insecurity. The benefits of income diversification have been widely documented in the literature. However, little econometric evidence exists on the drivers of income diversification among farm households in Ethiopia. The paper addresses this information gap by investigating the drivers of choice decisions and intensity of income diversification among farm households using data collected from a sample of 385 randomly selected households from the Ethiopian central highlands. Unlike previous studies, our multivariate probit model results show that the choice decision of farm households is significantly interrelated and drivers had heterogeneous effects on the choice decision of households. The findings revealed that age, education, livestock, land, food shortage, agricultural commercialization cluster (ACC), investment in sustainable farming practices, rainfall, and maximum temperature significantly impacted the choice of income diversification. The fractional response logit model results revealed that age, livestock, food shortage, joint household decision‐making, ACC, income, rainfall, and study site significantly impacted the intensity of income diversification. The descriptive results revealed that most farmers (67%) tend to have a more diversified portfolio of income including off‐farm, forest, non‐farm, livestock, crop, and other sources, and the intensity of diversification ranges between 0 and 0.76. The study also finds the presence of both synergies and trade‐offs in different types of diversification. We suggest that there is an urgent need to improve the ways of income diversification among farm households to both the sustainability of small farms and ensure food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020 had a significant impact on human health and the economy. To effectively manage this pandemic, we must balance economic losses and health benefits. We must use real-time data to accomplish this. The literature currently available for Ethiopia is based on simulations of pre-COVID macroeconomic data and economic indicators. Using a Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimator for a machine learning semi-mixed effect model (SMEM) of structural gravity, this study estimated the impact of COVID-19 cases and deaths, vaccinations, and non-pharmaceutical policies on Ethiopian trade. Cases, deaths, and the stringency index all have statistically significant negative effects on bilateral exports and imports. Vaccinations, on the other hand, have a statistically significant positive impact on both bilateral exports and imports. When compared to bilateral imports, Ethiopia's bilateral exports suffer greatly. Import substitution and increased vaccination coverage and rates are the policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study was to examine smallholder farmers' milk and butter market participation decision and level of participation in the Ada'a Berga district. A multi-stage sampling technique employed to select 123 respondents. Heckman two stage model was used. The result of the Heckamn first stage show that breed type, income from dairy, membership of dairy cooperative and milking cows have a positive and statistically significant effect on milk market participation. While, the distance from market, number milking cows, market information and non-dairy income has a positive and statistically significant effect on the farmers' decision to participate in the butter market. The second stage Heckman model result shows education, number milking cows, credit and membership of dairy cooperative have a positive and statistically significant effect on the level of milk market participation. Also, factors such as number milking cows, access to credit, dairy income and volume of milk produced have a positive and statistically significant effect on level of butter market participation. Therefore, improving breeding, education, market information, strengthening cooperative and extension and credit service can increase farmers' participation in output market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable land management (SLM) practices for curbing the effects of land degradation, mainly in drought-prone areas, have been addressed by the community-based watershed development (CBWD) scheme since the 1980s in Ethiopia. However, the scheme has failed to consider farmers' potential willingness to pay (WTP) for SLM practices, as well as basic biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional factors. This study estimated farmers' potential WTP (in terms of labor) and analyzed the drivers behind it in the Upper Blue Nile basin in Ethiopia. A contingent valuation method and Tobit econometric model were used to analyze survey data from 300 household heads. About 76% of the farmers said they would be willing to contribute labor (3.5–28 man-days yr−1), but the mean WTP (9.4 man-days yr−1) of the three watersheds was less than the set government value (28 man-days yr−1). The farmers' WTP aggregate benefit at the watershed scale was estimated to be US$55,572 yr−1. The econometric model results revealed that sex, age group, farmland size, SLM-related training, and household perception of land degradation influenced farmers' potential WTP. To this end, revising the current CBWD scheme by considering various aspects of farmers' WTP would help to make the scheme demand-driven. Moreover, the provision of gender- and resource-disaggregated training and the introduction of economic incentives to increase the economic productivity of SLM practices would enhance farmers' maximum WTP capacity and assure sustainable community participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article was to investigate SCP of milk and butter market in Ada'a Berga District using SCP model. Primary data collected from randomly selected 123 smallholder farmers, 48 traders and 30 consumers were used to calculate the gross margin, concentration ratio(CR), regulation of market entry and exit and market conduct. The CR results showed that top four milk traders controlled 78.8% and 89.54% of the total volume of milk sold in Ada'a Berga and Holeta, respectively, and 61.29% and 63.46% butter sold in Ada'a Berga and Holeta, respectively. The CR of milk and butter markets were strongly oligopolistic. Education, market transparency and capital, political equality, corruption were barrier to entry milk and butter trade. The conduct analysis results showed that farmers use different markets outlets and price setting strategies to sell dairy products. The result of pricing setting was not competitive as 51.67% dairy price decisions were decided by buyers. In milk marketing, the maximum total gross marketing margin of producers share was 63.15% in channel III (producer, district retailer to consumers). The maximum producer's share in butter market was in channel V (producer, district retailer to consumers). Therefore, strengthening institutions that convey reliable and timely market information; support dairy market, improving collective action of farmers, address the challenges of financial access to smallholder farmers and traders to decrease oligopolistic nature of the market. Moreover, give attention to market infrastructural, training and yield increasing technologies in the study area to improvement production and marketing of dairy products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teff is among the most widely grown cereal crop in Ethiopia and important in national food security. The study aimed to measure technical efficiency and sources of inefficiencies of teff producer farmers. Primary data was collected from 146 farmers selected by a three-stage sampling technique. A one-stage estimation approach of the stochastic frontier model was used. The stochastic frontier model result indicated that labor, oxen power, land allocated for teff, seed rate, and interaction of land and labor significantly affect output of teff. In addition, 96.5% of teff output variation from the frontier was attributed to technical inefficiency. The mean technical efficiency of farmers was 76.4% indicating that in the short-run technical efficiency could be increased by 23.6% through better use of labor, oxen power, land allocated for teff, and seed. Moreover, the result of the inefficiency model confirmed that technical inefficiency of teff production was negatively affected by early harvesting, the experience of farmers, use of the improved seed, and education level of farmers while positively affected by the participation of farmers in non/off-farm activities, distance to district market and lodging. The finding implies that strengthen awareness to use improved seed; the need to strengthen informal education, experience sharing of farmers and development of market infrastructure, non/off-farm activities should be done during off-seasons and strengthen the extension service to let farmers use the recommended crop husbandry practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]