Analysis of Farmers’ Perceptions on Wheat Seed Supply Sources in Gedeo Zone, South Ethiopia
Merknehi Bekele *
Hawassa Agricultural Research Center, in Sidama Agricultural Institute, Ethiopia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Background: Wheat is a strategic crop for the Ethiopian government because of its essential contribution to national food security and rural income generation. Ethiopia ranks as the second-largest wheat producer in Africa in terms of both cultivated area and total output, yet the average yield per hectare remains significantly lower than global benchmarks. Seed insecurity is widely recognized as the most critical constraint limiting productivity improvements. Moreover, the quality of services provided by the seed supply system is a major determinant of seed security among smallholder farmers. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine farmers’ perceptions of the formal wheat seed supply system in the Gedeo Zone of southern Ethiopia.
Methodology: A total of 203 sample households were selected from four kebeles through a simple random sampling technique. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze data.
Result: Across the six indicators, the largest share of farmer responses frequency (36.66%) falls under strong disagreement level, and the overall mean score of indicators is 2.4. The findings reveal that farmers generally hold negative perceptions of the formal seed supply system, largely due to delayed seed delivery, limited availability, and insufficient information dissemination.
Conclusion: Farmers in the study area have not been satisfied with the service quality of the existing formal wheat seed supply system; as a result, they have developed negative perceptions of the wheat seed system in the area. This negative perception indicates that farmers depend on alternative informal seed supply systems, which has affected wheat productivity in the area. Hence, to overcome these problems, agricultural extension personnel at regional, zonal, and woreda levels, together with seed enterprises, should address these systemic shortcomings particularly those related to seed quantity shortage, low quality, late distribution, and ineffective information provision in order to improve equitable access to improved wheat seed for smallholder farmers in the study area.
Keywords: Farmers’ perception, formal seed source, informal seed sources, Likert scale, seed supply system, wheat