Abstract:
It is known that both specialization and diversification have their own advantages and dis
advantages. Currently, diversification is more favorable for stability of farming system and
sustainable agriculture. On the contrary, farmers in Amhara region are shifting from
diversified agriculture to monoculture of eucalyptus woodlot plantation. Therefore, the
main objective of this study was analyzing driving forces of farmers’ decision from
diversified agriculture practice to monoculture of eucalyptus woodlot plantation in North
Mecha district. Multi-stage sampling technique was employed for household survey and
GIS for collection of geo-spatial data. Household survey of 166 farmers, key informants
and focus group discussion were employed to collect primary data. Nineteen years of
Landsat images, NDVI and on-screen digitizing were used to detect multi-temporal trends
of eucalyptus plantation. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and binary logistic
regression were used as data analysis methods. The result confirms that, the average area
was changed 41%, 4% and 6%, from annual crop land, grazing land and perennial crop
land to eucalyptus woodlot, respectively. The remote sensed information verified that
eucalyptus plantation expanded from 3864ha to 6491ha in the years of 2000 and 2019,
respectively. While, crop land declined from 5027.9ha to 3541ha. The major drivers of
farmers to decide from diversified agriculture to monoculture of eucalyptus plantation
were, competition from neighbor eucalyptus growers, demand low labor, high price of
agricultural inputs and low selling price of crop products, low risk disease and pestand
rise current market demand on domestic and export (Ethio-Sudan) on eucalyptus. Further
different socioeconomic factors that contributed or hinder for eucalyptus expansion were:
parcel number, family size and total land holding had positive significant whereas,
frequency of extension contact, family labor and sex had negatively significant. The study
concludes, due to the existence of the above driving forces & lack of awareness about
eucalyptus plantation, the farmers’ plantation expansion continues. Therefore, it is
recommended that the ministry of agriculture shall work on awareness creation about its
side effect and introduction of high productive and market value agricultural technology.
Key Words: Binary logistic regression, Driving forces, NDVI, North Mecha district,
Trends