Rural Households' Demand Status for Mitigation of Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC Invasion and Its Determinant Factors in Ethiopia: Empirical Evidence from Afar National Regional State.

Ethiopia is among the world's poorest nations, and its economy is growing extremely slowly; thus, the government's budget to manage environmental amenities is not always sufficient. Thus, for the provision of environmental management services such as the eradication of Prosopis juliflora, the participation of local households and other stakeholders is crucial. This study is therefore initiated with the objective of assessing rural households' demands for mitigating Prosopis juliflora invasion in the Afar Region of Ethiopia. A multistage sampling technique was employed to obtain the 313 sample rural households that were used in the analysis, and those sample households were selected randomly and independently from the Amibara and Awash Fentale districts of Afar National Regional State, Ethiopia. In doing this, a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model was used to determine factors affecting rural households' demands for mitigating Prosopis juliflora invasion. Consequently, as per the inferential statistical results, there was a significant mean/percentage difference between willing and nonwilling households for the hypothesized variables, except for some variables such as farm experience; years lived in the area, distance from the market, and dependency ratio. Furthermore, the seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model result indicates that sex, family size, tenure security, livestock holding, frequency of extension contact, and years lived in the area were important factors influencing the willingness to participate in Prosopis juliflora management practices positively, whereas age, off-farm/nonincome, and bid value affected willingness to pay negatively and significantly. Hence, to improve the participation level of households, policymakers should target these variables.

Determinants of adoption of urban agricultural practices in eastern Haraghe zone of Oromia region and Dire Dawa City administration, eastern Ethiopia.

Although urban agriculture (UA) can aid economic development, food inflation, unemployment, and nutritional insecurity often necessitate urban households to engage in various agricultural practices. Hence, the study aimed to identify UA practices adopted and their determinants in the Eastern Haraghe zone of the Oromia region and Dire Dawa City Administration, Eastern Ethiopia. Data was collected from 385 randomly selected urban households using a semi-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and a Multivariate Probit (MVP) model were used to analyze the data. The results of the MVP model reveal that sex, age, education level, land size, extension contact, credit access, community group participation, training, and household non-farm income significantly influenced vegetable farming adoption. On the other hand, livestock production adoption was also affected by factors such as sex, land size, perception, credit access, farming experience, community group participation, market distance, training, and non-farm income. Crop-fruit production adoption was also influenced by factors like age, perception, farming experience, market distance, training, and dependency ratio. Improving the ability to use the land for UA purposes, empowering female-headed households, improving livestock breeds, creating awareness through short-term training, and improving credit accessibility are important recommendations to enhance the adoption of UA practices in the study areas.

Evaluation of interventions to improve markets for rural dairy households of Ethiopia: Evidence through system dynamics approach.

There is a growing consensus that improving market access for smallholder farmers will help them earn more income and enhance food security. In this respect, we employed system dynamics approach to evaluate interventions to expand market access for the traditional system dairy producers in West Shewa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Investment by dairy cooperatives in milk collection capacity and/or raising the price of milk for producers are the interventions identified in the study. These interventions were assessed ex-ante for impacts on (1) milk collection and dairy enterprise balance for dairy cooperatives and (2) milk production and profitability of dairying for producers. Analysis results show that compared to the baseline, the interventions can increase milk production by 17 to 57 %, milk collection by 24- to 43-fold, dairy household's profit by 11- to 21-fold, and cooperatives' dairy enterprise balance by 27- to 55-fold. In the long-term, both dairy cooperatives and producers are better off under market access improvement than under market access with higher milk price for producers. The findings suggest that continued improvement in market access for the traditional dairy farmers in Ethiopia is necessary to sustain higher gains in milk production, milk marketed, and income from dairying.

Exploring policy options to transform traditional dairy system in Ethiopia: A system dynamics approach.

Despite having a larger herd size and a favourable climate, Ethiopia generally lags behind developing nations in terms of both production and consumption of dairy products. For the purpose of finding and assessing ways to increase milk production by the traditional dairy system in Ethiopia's West Shewa zone, we integrated system dynamics (SD) modelling with a participatory model building approach. The main objective of the research was to develop SD model for West Shewa dairy value chain and apply it to assess ex-ante milk production and dairy household profit impacts of various interventions. The interventions evaluated in the study include enhanced urea treatment of crops residue, increased production of improved feed, and investment in more dairy cows. Analysis reveals that policies targeting feed development can boost milk production and household profits above the baseline. They also lead to a higher seasonal variability in milk production. Through the feed development strategy producers can achieve a 70 % and 735 % increase in milk production and household profit, respectively. However, the implementation of improved feed policy still leaves a gap in the average feed protein requirement of a dairy cattle in the study area. On the other hand, policy of increasing cow herd is not profitable. In addition, improved feed policy in drought results in reduced herd size, yet it leads to a higher milk output and household profit. Hence, with the feed development options explored in this study, increasing herd size is not a recommended course of action for improvement of the West Shewa dairy value chain. Therefore, future research should explore for further enhancement of the supply as well as quality of feed resources and the potential of investment in improved breeds.

Preference and willingness to pay for small ruminant market facilities - Discrete choice experiment data.

The data described in this brief were collected in 2018 as part of a national study to elicit preferences and estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for small ruminant market facilities in Ethiopia. We employed multistage sampling method to identify respondents. First, Menz Gishe area was selected from North Shewa administrative zone for its high small ruminant population. Second, three districts from five districts found in Menz Gishe were selected randomly. Then, eight Kebeles from fifty one Kebeles were selected randomly. Finally, 360 farmers were randomly selected proportional to the total number of farm households in each Kebele. We used discrete choice experiments to elicit preferences from the 360 respondents across the three districts whereby we presented 12 choice situations to each of them and hence generated 4320 observations. Generalized multinomial logit model (GMNL) and latent class model were used to investigate preferences for the market and heterogeneities around them. We also estimated the GMNL in WTP space to estimate the WTP values for the facilities. The dataset complements an original article entitled " Preference and Willingness to Pay for Small Ruminant Market Facilities in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia " and will be useful in replicating results for academic purposes and or employing the data for further development of choice behavior models.