Transfer of Early Maturing Sorghum Technologies through Participatory Evaluation in Eastern Amhara Region of Ethiopia

Abstract

The low or non-adoption of improved agricultural technologies might be resulted from inadequate participation of farmers at all stages of the process of benefiting farmers. The current study was conducted in the representative sorghum producing areas of Wollo with the objective of assessing farmers' preference towards improved sorghum varieties and providing a menu of sorghum technologies. Both inferential and descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Farmers' perception was assessed using preference ranking and narration. Moreover, Agricultural events such as field days and experience sharing were prepared to capture farmers' perception about the technologies. GenStat v.18th was used to analyze the data. Analysis of variance was employed to test the mean difference of yield among varieties. The result of ANOVA showed that improved sorghum varieties Dekeba and ESH1 gave the highest grain yield at respective sites. In kalu and Dawa chefa, farmers preferred Argiti whereas in Raya Kobo, Melkam was the variety preferred by the farmers. From the analysis of Spearman's rank correlation, there was evidence on coincidence of farmers' preference and the actual data. Therefore, the analysis of farmers' preference and yield data jointly confirm that improved varieties Melkam and Argiti can be promoted in the respective districts of the study area