Abstract:
The results of longstanding literature on adoption of agricultural technologies identifies several
factors contributing to low adoption rates, including input, output, land, labor, credit, and
insurance market inefficiencies. Extensive bread wheat varietal development and technology
transfer efforts have been made in Meket district. However, the status of bread wheat
technology adoption and its determinants has not been analyzed. Therefore, this study was
proposed with the objective of analyzing adoption and intensity of bread wheat technologies in
Meket district. The study area was selected purposively due to previous bread wheat technology
transfer efforts in the area. The study uses cross-sectional data collected from a randomly
selected 214 farming households through interview schedule. Improved bread wheat varieties
such as Dinknesh, Digalu, Denda and Kakaba have predominantly grown in the study area.
Moreover, the results of one-way ANOVA revealed that the adoption intensity of bread wheat
technologies shows a significant variation among adopter categories. The first hurdle of the
double hurdle model reveals that the number of oxen, mobile ownership, TLU, Education level
of the household head and extension contact, positively and significantly affected the
probability of bread wheat technology adoption. Whereas, the intensity of bread wheat
adoption was positively and significantly affected by participation on on-farm demonstrations
and annual income. On the other hand, intensity of adoption was negatively and significantly
affected by ownership of main plots and perception towards shattering problem of bread wheat
varieties. Bread wheat varietal attributes such as high marketability, early maturity, better yield
and color were perceived to have better relative importance for the farmers. Analysis of
farmers’ perception also demonstrated that row planting demands extra labor, which attributed
for higher objection by farmers. The findings of this study highlight the importance of economic
and institutional factors related to agricultural extension and communication, the participation
of farmers in on-farm demonstrations, wealth creation and acknowledging farmers’ perception
regarding bread wheat technology attributes. Therefore, development interventions should
strive towards improving such economic, institutional, and psychological related factors to