Abstract:
Mechanized technology is used to bring high agricultural productivity in the study
areas. And even, it has a greater role in Ethiopian economy and useful for millions
of our citizens. The majority of agricultural practices in Ethiopia haven‟t used
mechanized agricultural technology which result in a lack of agricultural output and
productivity for our smallholder farmers. Therefore, the problems such as lack of
trainings, low purchasing power of the end-users, high price of the technology,
inaccessibility of aftersales maintenance services, hire services , credit services, lack
of skills for blacksmith/manufacturers/,poor quality of technology, inaccessibility of
suppliers, distributors, maintenance work shops and finally, un supporting of
infrastructure are the related identified factors that affected the farmers‟ use of
mechanized technology in the study areas. The objective of this study was to
investigate socio-economic, technical and distribution factors that affected the
farmers‟ use of mechanized technology and also to develop a generic production
distribution business model of mechanized agricultural technology in West Gojjam,
Amhara Regional State. In this thesis, it is used both quantitative and qualitative
research methods, moreover, the qualitative data was used to triangulate the
structure of the thesis body. The sampling technique, which was used in this thesis,
is two-stage sampling technique which include both purposive and systematic
sampling methods that can be used to select the representatives from west Gojjam
zones and woredas, in Amhara Regional State. The data collection tools used in this
thesis were self-administrated questionnaires, focused group discussions,
IV
observation, and semi-structured interview questionnaires so as to address the basic
objective of the thesis.
The generic production-distribution business model is a conceptual structure model
that solved the problem of how to produce and distribute mechanized agricultural
technology for the end users. Finally, unavailability of production and maintenance
workshops, shortage of finance, low communication between farmers and DAs‟, and
unavailability of distributors and suppliers were found to be the challenge of the
farmers‟ use of mechanized technology in the study areas.