Abstract

Development of the Ethiopian economy is directly related to the transformation of the agricultural sector which is manifested with low utilization of recommended agronomic practices, improved farm inputs, and dependency on traditional farming and rainfall. As a result, low production and productivity of agriculture were prevalent over the last years. This study aims to identify the factors influencing adoption of recommended agronomic practices of wheat farming. Two-stage sampling method was applied to select 204 smallholder wheat producing farmers. Simple descriptive statistics and econometrics model such as multivariate probit model were used. The result of the model indicates that formal education level, family size, farm size, distance to the input market, use of chemical fertilizers and the use of credit have negatively and statistically significant effect on adoption decision while off-farm income, access of social media, cultivated land size, and attitude towards risk have positively and statistically significant effect on adoption decision of agronomic practices among wheat producing farmers. Moreover, early planting has a negative effect on distance to input market, farm size, and use of chemical fertilizers. The study recommended that government and other concerned body should develop the supply of inputs provision mechanism, credit, land, awareness creation through media.

Key words: Adoption of agronomic practices, multivariate probit model, and Ethiopia.