Driving Forces of Farmers’ Decision towards Monoculture of Eucalyptus Plantation and its Trends in North Mecha District, North-West, Ethiopia
Author : Melsew Nibret Mazengiya, Assefa Abelieneh Berhanu and Girmachew Seraw Misganaw
Abstract :
Eucalyptus is the most commonly grown tree species at farm level of rural households in Ethiopia. Despite its importance in the study area eucalyptus is expanding by expensing crop land with its alleged ecological effects. Likewise, there was no sufficient information about extent of eucalyptus growing and the driving forces of farmers’ decision to plant eucalyptus. Therefore, the objective was to analyze the trends of eucalyptus growing and identify the driving forces of farmers’ decisions towards eucalyptus growing. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed reaching from household survey to remote sensing data processing. The collected data was analyzed through the GIS software package. The remote sensing result confirmed the rapid increment of eucalyptus plantation in the study area while cropland declined. The remote sensed information verified that eucalyptus plantation expanded from 3864ha to 6491ha in the years 2000 and 2019 respectively. While cropland declined from 5027.9ha to 3541ha. The major drivers of farmers to decide from diversified agriculture to monoculture of eucalyptus plantation were; competition from neighboring eucalyptus growers, demand for low labor, the high price of agricultural inputs, the low selling price of crop products, low risk, disease and pest and rising current market demand on domestic and export (Ethio-Sudan) on eucalyptus. The study concludes that due to the existence of the above driving forces, the farmers’ plantation expansion continues. Therefore, it is recommended that the ministry of agriculture shall work on awareness creation about its side effect and the introduction of highly productive and market value agricultural technology.
Keywords :
Driving forces, monoculture, north Mecha district, remote sensing
