CONTRIBUTION OF HOMEGARDENS TO HOUSEHOLD INCOME IN BOLOSO BOMBE DISTRICT OF WOLAITA ZONE, ETHIOPIA

Homegarden is a land use system involving deliberate management of multipurpose trees and shrubs in intimate association with annual and perennial agricultural crops and invariably livestock within the compounds of individual houses. The high diversity of species in HG has wide socioeconomic and agro-ecological roles. Recently, there has been a decline in yields and income earnings from homegardens. These declines required a strategic plan that will enhance the balancing of the productivity. The present study was conducted in Boloso Bombe district during August to December 2016 with the main objective of determining the category of homegardens and assessing their contributions to household income. Data collection was done through household survey, observation and key informant interviews. The study involved two altitudinal villages and sixty one households from each village selected randomly. To accomplish the analysis descriptive Statistical techniques, analysis of variance and regression analysis were provided by the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 16). The findings indicated that two types of homegarden systems are found in the study area. From them, 79.4% of household practice agrosilvopastoral type of homegarden system. Homegardens contributed 42% to household income among four sources of income generation. There was significant difference on homegarden system practices in generating income at 5% level of significance. Average income from agrosilvopastoral is high while average income from agrosilvicultural was the low. R2 value in the regression output indicated that 62.5% of the total variations of the income were explained by land size and homegarden system practices.