ADOPTION OF AGROFORESTRY PRACTICE AMONG THE SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN WOMBERA DISTRICT OF BENISHANGUL GUMUZ REGIONAL STATE

Agroforestry is integrated land use systems where by woody perennials and herbaceous crops and/ animals are grown on a land management unit. The study attempted to evaluate the degree of factors and major problems influencing adoption of agroforestry practice among smallholder farmers of the district. In Wombera district, agroforestry technologies adoption and woody species distribution have not been extensively researched and introduced to smallholder farmers for long period of time. The data was assessed from household survey with randomly selected 113 farmers (70 adopter and 43 non adopters) of PAFP from the three study sites and analyzed by using SPSS Version 20. The result showed that, the major constraints of adoption of parkland agroforestry were age of the individuals, family size, educational level, land shortage, inadequate extension support, lack of knowledge and skills, lack of infrastructure and seedling shortage. The woody species diversity assessment indicated that a total of 34 woody species were recorded. The mean number of woody species recorded per quadrat was approximately 1, 2 and 1 for Addis Alem, Minjo-Bollele and Zematia respectively. Thus, the species richness in Minjo-Bollele was the highest followed by Addis Alem and Zematia. Woody species distribution in the adopters of household interviewed farmland was also recorded and analyzed using Shannon Diversity index (H') which was the highest in Minjo-Bollele (2.77) than Addis Alem (2.54) and Zematia (1.97). The findings of the study showed that, the strength of association between most of the adoption variables was high, giving an indication that they affect the adoption decision of the smallholder farmers. Moreover, the government, NGOs and other stakeholders should further explore the determinants of adoption of new technology and fulfill the gaps of knowledge of extension workers (DAs) and smallholder farmers in the district