An ex-ante analysis of inter cropping food crops with forage legumes in mixed crop-livestock systems in the Ethiopian highlands
1999
Menale Kasie (Region 3 Bureau of Agriculture, Bahir Dar (Ethiopia)) | Mohammed Jabbar | Belay Kasa
Linear Programming has been used to determine the economic impacts of food crop-forage legumes integration given the resource constraints and possible changes in prices of output and inputs. To assess the potential economic benefits of forage legumes-cereal crops integration in the highlands, a representative farm for Debre Zeit area was analysed. model results demonstrate that the introduction of forage legues with cereals is profitable. The model results indicate an optimal cropping pattern of growing teff, maize, wheat, pulses, sorghum, and bariey in descending order of importance in terms of area allocation. this is different from the existing cropping pattern of teff, wheat, pulses, sorghum, and barley in the descending order. Improved technologies have the potential to remain profutable even when there is a decrease in price of outputs. the overall implication of adopting the cropping pattern obtained from the improved models solution is that resources allocated to the production of current crops have to be reallocated to the production of the new crops. The major crops that the farmers in Debre Zeit area are used to growing are teff and wheat. Thus, adopting the new cropping pattern will entail the education of the farmers through extension services in the production of maize. Introduction of forage legumes makes better use of resources and increases farm income and returns from resources considerable.
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