1,720,965 research outputs found
Economic Impact of Improved Cattle Feeding Practice on Performance Dairy Farms and Household Welfare in Northern Ethiopia
Full text linkIn this paper, efforts were made to estimate the impact of stall feeding (SF) technology on households’ milk production and consumption, market participation as well as land conservation in rural Northern Ethiopia using data obtained from a survey of 518 rural farmers. Using endogenous switching regression models, we estimate different outcome indicators for both adopters from adopting SF (ATT), and non-adopters had they adopted (ATU). The values of ATT and ATU show that SF adoption increased milk production, consumption expenditure, number of plantation and of physical construction, propensity of participating in animal market sale and growing trees in their plots
It is Too Late to Regret and Take Risk: Farmers' Adoption Decision for Stall-Feeding (SF) on Tigray, Ethiopia
Full text linkExploring farmers’ seasonal and full year adoption of stall feeding of livestock in Tigrai region, Ethiopia
No full textAdoption of stall feeding (SF) of livestock was assessed in northern Ethiopia based on a household survey conducted in 2015. The study covered 21 communities in Tigrai to account for differences in agroecology. The purpose of this study was to understand the driving factors of full or seasonal SF adoption and its intensity. A Heckman selection model was used to estimate adoption and extent of adoption based on a model of technology adoption within an agricultural household framework, and Poisson Model for explaining the number of SF adopting seasons. The descriptive results indicate that 36% of the farmers were actually practicing SF in a full year whereas 55.6% were seasonal adopters in the study area. Empirical results of this study showed that our result is in favor of the Boserupian hypothesis indicating that small grazing land and large exclosure are associated with a higher probability of use of SF and with a higher number of SF adopting seasons. In a similar vein, small average village farm size stimulated SF adoption and adopting seasons, Availability of labor and a number of breed cows significantly increased the probability of using SF by 0.01% and 66% respectively. While animal shock had a marginal effect of 14%, factors such as access to information and early exposure increased SF adoption by about 18% and 6%. Similarly, the positive marginal effect of real milk price is 15%. However, SF appears to be less attractive to those farmers with more herd size and less crop residue
The response of farm labor and farm production to animal grazing and water resource scarcity in Northern Ethiopia
Full text linkPurpose. Rural households spend a large share of their daily time to search for grazing feed, water resource and collect straw by displacing labor time away from crop farming activities. This paper aims to analyze the economic effect of time spent looking for animal water and grazing areas on farm labor input and crop farm output.
Methodology / approach. To address our objectives, a general Cobb-Douglas production function was estimated using a unique dataset from 518 sample farmers in Tigrai, Ethiopia drawing on a non-separable farm household model.
Results. The results favor the hypothesis of a negative relationship between crop output and resource scarcity. In aggregate, the findings confirm that reducing time spent looking for water, grazing and straw by 1 % leads to an increase in food production by 0.155 %, 0.279 % and 0.328 % respectively. Similarly, the shadow price variables are significant, have the expected negative sign and are consistent with the theory. The sign of other factors are consistent with the prediction of the economic theory.
Originality / scientific novelty. The noble contribution of this paper is, unlike previous studies, we collected information on the entire set of crop production, along with the distance to grazing, water and crop residue of each household. This paper considers three important resources for an animal such as grazing, water and crop residue, of which the first two have not been explored well. The use of distance level and shadow price as resource scarcity indicators is an extra benefit to the literature.
Practical value / implications. The results of this paper provide an interesting picture of stallholders in Ethiopia. As expected, it appears that time spent searching for animal water and feed has a significant and negative effect on labor and crop output. Our results got the evidence of a negative relationship between labor input to crop farming and resource scarcity
UNDERSTANDING FARMERS SEASONAL AND FULL YEAR STALL FEEDING ADOPTION IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIA
Full text linkAdoption of stall feeding (SF) as well as choices of animals and seasons for its application were assessed in northern Ethiopia in 2015 using a household field survey. The study was conducted in 21 communities to account for differences in agro ecology and to better understand the adoption process. A Heckman selection model was used to estimate adoption and extent of adoption based on a model of technology adoption within an agricultural household framework. A Poisson model was also applied to explain the number of SF adopting seasons. Further a multinomial logit model was estimated in order to reinforce understanding of the choices. The purpose of this study was to understand the driving factors of full or seasonal SF adoption and its intensity as well as animal and seasonal choices. The study results indicate that farmers actually practicing SF in a full year are 36% while those of actual seasonal adopters are 55.6%. The choice of animals allocated to SF include cow (40%), ox (31%) and other animals (29%) of the given sample indicating feeding cow under SF takes the largest share. Similarly, the choice for season were, 65% full year, 29 % wet (summer and autumn) and 6% dry (winter and spring), implying that more than half of the sample farmers practice SF the year round. Empirical results of this study showed that result is in favour of the Boserupian hypothesis indicating that small grazing land and large exclosure are associated with a higher probability of use of SF and with a higher number of SF adopting seasons throughout the year. In a similar vein, small average village farm size stimulated full SF adoption and SF adopting seasons, Availability of labour relative to farm size and a number of breed cows significantly increased the probability of using SF by 0.01% and 66% respectively. While animal shock appeared to have a marginal effect of 14%.The finding also revealed that factors such as access to information and early exposure increased the probability of SF adoption by 18% and 6%. Similarly, the positive marginal effect of real milk price is 15%. However, SF appears to be less attractive to those farmers with more herd size relative farm size and less crop residue. Regarding the intensity of SF adoption, while total labour time, farm size positively affect the extent of SF adoption, total herd size and grazing land ratio negatively influence farmers’ extent of SF adoption in all seasons
Does it pay to switch from free grazing to stall feeding? Impact of stall feeding practice on household welfare in Tigrai Ethiopia
Full text linkIn this paper, efforts were made to the impact of full and seasonal stall feeding technology on households’ economic, ecological, and social welfare outcome indicators in rural Northern Ethiopia using data obtained from the survey of 518 rural farmers. In order to address our primary objective, an endogenous switching regression model was applied. The overall result indicated that SF adoption ensures significant gains in terms of the specified outcome indicators. Using endogenous switching regression models, we estimated different outcome indicators for both adopters from adoption (ATT), and non-adopters had they adopted (ATU). It is identified that there would be a decline of 21% in milk production and productivity if adopters would not have adopted this technology while non-adopters are estimated to increase their milk production and productivity by 100 and 48% if they would adopt this technology. The results further show that SF adoption had a significant increment in the lactation period. An increase of consumption expenditure by 17% from FSF and 44% in the case of SSF could be considered significant on livelihoods for smallholder farmers. On average, adoption of SF increased manure use in the range of 258–294 kg for adopters. The results showed that SF has decreased the propensity of hiring labor by about 29% and purchase of animal feed by 31%. We have found that participation in SF, on average, decreased total cattle stock by 1 TLU but increased the probability of keeping milking cow by 23%. The adoption of SF increased the likelihood of participating in an animal sale market by 29% for adopters and by 47% for non-adopters had they decided to adopt. The adoption of SF leads to a gain in a number of plants of 11 trees and 29 m of physical construction for the typical adopter and 36 trees and 133 m if the typical non-adopter were to adopt the SF technology on their plots. The adoption process also increased the propensity of growing trees by 19% and decreased household animal shock experience by a probability of 19% for adopters and about 15%
The Economic Impact of Stall Feeding on Cow Milk Production and Calf Death: Empirical Evidence from Northern Ethiopia
Full text linkEthiopia, the emerging economies of Africa has abundant cow milk potential but its milk harvest is negligible. In order to enhance milk yield, an improved livestock feeding practice such as stall feeding (SF) is introduced and expanded in the region. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the impact of stall feeding on rural farmers’ milk production and calf death using IV 2SLS model. The paper used a primary data collected from 251 randomly selected smallholder households consisting 115 adopters and 136 non-adopters. Accordingly, the average SF adopter’s milk production per day per cow is 1.3 litters larger as compared to the non-users. Likewise, Stall feeding significantly reduces the probability of death for the newly born calves by about 68%
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Child labor and its determinants: An empirical test of the luxury axiom-cum the wealth paradox theory
No full textThe paper was motivated to test whether the high child labor prevalence observed in Ethiopia is explained by the poverty (luxury) hypothesis or wealth paradox theories. The data for this study is the Young Lives project, consisting of 1803 children units (a total of 7212 children in four rounds). Major determinants of child labor: household characteristics, shocks, poverty or wealth proxy indicators, and area and time fixed effect variables are controlled. The study employs a Feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) econometric technique to estimate the causal relationship between child labor; household characteristics, poverty, and wealth indicator variables. Both drought and income losses were found to be positive and significant almost across all specifications. Resource or asset ownership indicators, such as land, access to credit, and TLU) were found to be positively related to child labor, consistent with the wealth paradox. However, the wealth index, except in the two quartiles found to be negative and significant at 1 percent, consistent with the luxury axiom. One more result that is interesting is the significant differences between boys and girls in the type of tasks children engaged in. Girls' dominance in household chores and boys in economic activity. Moreover, the current high level of child labor participation rate of 45 percent is very alarming. Finally, the household head's educational status also has a strong negative impact on child labor. In view of, the moral obligation of societies and government; future economic benefit of investing in children, policy be directed towards pro-poor development programs especially targeting children's welfare, promoting adult education, and introducing agricultural insurance schemes to reduce the extent and intensity of child labor
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