Simegnew Tamir, Fessiha Moges, Yeshiwas Tilahun, Molla Hile
The study was conducted in Western part of the Amhara region, the study consider East Gojjam, West Gojjam, Awi and South Gondar zones. The main objective of the study was identifying factors affecting the adoption of exotic poultry breeds in the Region distributed by Andassa Poultry Multiplication Center and NGOs. A multi-stage random sampling technique was employed. Both descriptive and econometric analysis was used. For the econometric analysis Double Hurdle Model was used. Despite the huge effort by the Government as well as NGOs to improve traditional poultry production through introduction of exotic poultry breeds specially Day Old Chicks (DOCs) with full packages for the last 20 years, adoption of exotic poultry breed is very minimal in the smallholder poultry production system accounting only 7.8% from the total population including cross and pure breeds. The reasons for low adoptions are lack of sustainable supply of the breed, disease, predation, feed problem, poor awareness on breeds, lack of extension service, lack of training and market problem. Moreover, under farmers condition DOCs distribution is not effective and only less than 8% DOCs reach to younger ages (2 month pullets). Among the hypothesized factors only sex, family size, distance from road, distance from town, management system, number of poultry sold per year in the market and access to training significantly affected household’s decision to adopt exotic poultry breeds. Among the hypothesized factors only sex, distance from road, distance from town, management system, number of poultry sold, access to training and year of adoption significantly affected the intensity of adoption exotic poultry breeds. Therefore this study recommends provision of training and extension service about breed, management, feeding and health aspects before technology distribution, improving sustainable supply of the exotic poultry breed, distribution of technologies (exotic poultry breeds) for women and resource poor farmers, distribution of technologies for market accessible areas. Generally this study strongly recommends pullets (2 months age exotic poultry breeds) distribution either through out-growers model or poultry multiplication centers rather than investing much on the less effective DOCs distribution.
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