In breeding for drought tolerance, availability of precise, cheap and easy to apply selection tool is critical. The aim of the present study was to identify potential screening tools that are useful for selection of drought tolerant genotypes in potato and select drought resistant potato genotypes. The study assessed sixty clones arranged in a 10×6 alpha lattice design with two replicates in a managed stress experiment. Two irrigation treatments were applied: fully watered non-stress and terminal drought, where the irrigation water supply to the crop was withheld after 50 % flowering to induce post-flowering stress. Stress indices were calculated based on tuber yield of genotypes in both stressed and non-stressed conditions. Identification of drought tolerant genotypes based on a single index was less informative as different indices identified different genotypes as drought tolerant. Hence, to determine the most desirable drought tolerant clones rank sum of indices, correlation, and bi-plot display of the principal component analysis was employed. The indices modified stress tolerance index based on non-stressed yield, Men productivity, Geometric mean productivity, Stress tolerance index, Harmonic mean, modified stress tolerance index based on stressed yield and Yield index exhibited strong association with both yield under stressed and non-stressed yield. These indices discriminated drought tolerant genotypes with higher tuber yielding potential both under stress and non-stress conditions. Genotypes CIP-398180.612, CIP-397069.5, and CIP-304371.67 were identified as drought tolerant. These genotypes could be potentially grown both under drought prone and potential environments and these selection attributes could help to develop climate resilient potato varieties.

This paper examines factors determining farmers‘ adoption decision for improved maize varieties in the maize-common bean intercropping practices in two districts of East Hararghe zone, Eastern Ethiopia. It is based on data collected from 129 farm households using structured questionnaire. Descriptive results revealed that adopters of improved maize varieties had better food and nutrition security status. Furthermore, logit model output indicated that the decision to adopt improved maize varieties is influenced by location (district) dummy, education status of the household head, age of the household head, distance from the main road, and the number of plots owned. Major recommendations include improving the rural road infrastructure, educating and training farmers, organizing experience sharing events among farmers, and raising awareness about the food and nutrition security benefits of sustainable agricultural intensification practices like intercropping improved maize with improved common bean varieties.

Various biotic, abiotic and socio-economic factors negatively affect the productivity of the crop. Among these, a new disease known as Faba bean galls (Olpidium viciae) has become a serious threat to faba bean production and productivity in highland areas of central and northern Ethiopia. Thus, field experiment was conducted in Lay Gorebela and Mush to assess the efficacies of fungicides for the management of faba bean gall under natural infection. Six fungicides were evaluated alongside control in randomized complete block design in three replications. Fungicides showed different levels of efficiency at both locations in both seasons. In 2014/15, the highest percent severity index and area under disease progress curve were calculated from control plots at both locations. At Lay Gorebela, higher grain yields were recorded from Metalaxyl 8% + Mancozeb 64% WP and Triadimefon 250 g/L sprayed plots whereas plots sprayed with Metalaxyl 8% + Mancozeb 64% WP gave higher yield at Mush. Similar trends in percent severity index and grain yield were observed with control treatment in 2015/16. Percent severity index and area under disease progress curve were negatively correlated with grain yield and positively correlated with each other at both locations and seasons. Partial budget analysis indicated as Triadimefon 250 g/L and Metalaxyl 8% + Mancozeb 64% WP were cost-effective. The chemical treatment could be used as a short-term control strategy, and a component in integrated management of faba bean galls

This study was conducted on a total of 776 goats (part of Central highland goat breeds of Ethiopia), 306 from Boset district of Oromia region and 470 were from Minjar Shenkora district of Amhara region. A format developed by using food and agriculture organization discerption list was used for recording of morphological traits, bodyweight and linear body measurements. Both qualitative and quantitative traits were recorded from randomly sampled mature goats and the data were analyzed using SAS software. The goat type in the study area was characterized by a higher proportion of plain coat color patterns (62.5). Ingeneral, the majority (98.4%) of the studied goats were horned and characterized by backward orientation (67%) with a straight shape (49.3%). They presented a concave facial profile (73.8%), slop up toward the rump back profile (66.2%), no wattle (99.6%), no toggle (90.7%), no ruff (85.9%) and no beard (57.3%). The location had a significant effect on body weight and some other linear body measurements. Traits like body length, rump length, horn length, head length, head width and shin circumference were significantly higher in Boset district. In contrast, rump width and cannon bone length were significantly lower. The mean body weight of male goats in Boset and Minjar Shenkora district were 30.5±1.05 kg with a range of 16 to 47 and 27.5±0.56 with a range of 13 to 57, respectively. While for female counterpart mean body weights (kg) were 28.4±0.35 with a range of 17 to 45 for Boset and 27.5±0.33 with a range 15 to 57 for Minjar Shenkora district. Heart girth had the highest correlation with body weight in both sexes and shoulder width in Boset male goats. The wider variation in most quantitative measurement traits would open an opportunity for further improvement, conservation and utilization work.

Ethiopia’s export earning is heavily dependent on primary agricultural commodities and raw materials. Coffee has been the principal export commodity of Ethiopia for many years and continued to be the leading export commodity. The objective of this paper was, therefore, to identify the determinants of Ethiopia’s coffee export to the major trading partners. Eighteen countries were selected based on the importance of the country as Ethiopia’s coffee export destination and availability of the required data. Annual panel data from 2001 to 2016 was collected from FAO database and other relevant sources. After appropriate econometric tests had been applied, random effect model was selected and used to analyze the data. From the seven variables entered into the model, four variables were found to affect Ethiopia’s coffee export significantly. GDP of the importing countries and population size of Ethiopia affect Ethiopia’s coffee export positively as expected. Weighted distance between Ethiopia and its trading partners was also found to have an expected effect, negative, on Ethiopia’s coffee export. Contrary to the hypothesis, foreign direct investment flows to Ethiopia affected Ethiopia’s coffee export negatively. Based on the results, the study draws conclusion and policy implications. To increase Ethiopia’s coffee export, government and other stakeholders should give prime attention to countries where there is high demand for Ethiopia’s coffee. Moreover, coffee exporters should exploit the existing nearest market opportunities. Finally, favourable conditions should be created for the large unemployed labor of the country to increase coffee production and export.

The study aimed to identify the major challenges that affect the market information system, assess the possible mechanism that would increase their speculative and bargaining capacity power and to explore feasible information system solutions. Data were collected with structured questionnaire from104 farmers of different market using clustered sampling techniques. Descriptive research design and mixed (qualitative and quantitative) research approach vis-à-vis value chain approach is applied and developed an intermediary driven value chain model that links farmers to the market as a way to improve the unidirectional, selectively beneficiary traditional system. Using nine criteria on the multitude of alternative information delivery mechanisms for small holding farmers, Interactive Voice Response based system is found to be of highly effective. Restructuring the market information by bringing the most important wholesalers in to the system, enhancing the functionalities of the market by creating localized price data and creating demand forecasting platform by distinguishing crops that continuously face marketing problems are suggested as short-term action while, increasing economies of scale in production and distribution by consolidating farmers’ cooperatives, encouraging the development of third-party logistics, investing on the physical agro-logistics infrastructure to support long-distance, high-volume agricultural product transportation modes as well as increasing the refrigerated storage capacity at wholesale markets to nurture cold chain technologies are very crucial tasks in the long run.

This experiment was conducted in Antsokia Gemza district, Ethiopia in 2017/18 to evaluate the effect of intra-row spacing on bulb quality and storability of onion varieties. A 4×4 factorial experiment with four different varieties (Adama Red, Bombay Red, Melkam and Shendi) and four levels of intra-row spacing (5.00, 7.50, 10.00 and 12.50 cm) was laid on randomized complete block design with three replications. Data were collected on bulb quality attributes and storability and subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using statistical analysis system (SAS) computer software 9.1. The mean separation test was done by list significant difference (LSD) test at 5% probability level. Simple linear correlation analyses between and among the different parameters were made using Pearson Correlation Coefficient. Accordingly, most of the parameters were significantly affected by intra-row spacing and variety. Variety Melkam exhibited the highest bulb diameter, bulb length, bulb dry matter content and bulb fresh weight. Melkam and Adama Red were with the lowest weight loss in storage while Bombay Red and Shendi scored the highest weight loss in storage. Most of the bulb quality parameters were significantly highest at the widest intra-row spacing of 10.00 and 12.50 cm. However, there was no significant variation between 7.50 and 10.00 cm intra-row spacing on average bulb weight which is considered as the most important bulb quality parameter for the producers from the market point of view. Weight loss was higher at the widest intra-row spacing for all varieties. Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that the bulb quality and storability of onion in Antsokia Gemza district can be optimized through cultivating variety Melkam at intra-row spacing of 7.5 cm.

Policy makers need to know the relationship among energy use, economic growth and environmental quality in order to formulate rigorous policy for economic growth and environmental sustainability. This study analyzes the nexus among energy consumption, affluence, financial development, trade openness, urbanization, population and CO2 emissions in Ethiopia using data from 1970–2014. The ARDL cointegration results show that cointegration exists among the variables. Energy consumption, population, trade openness and economic growth have positive impact on CO2 in the long-run while economic growth squared reduces CO2 emissions which confirms that the EKC hypothesis holds in Ethiopia. In the short-run urbanization and energy consumption intensify environmental degradation. Toda-Yamamoto granger causality results indicate the bi-directional causality between energy consumption and CO2 emissions, CO2 emissions and urbanization. Financial development, population and urbanization cause economic growth while economic growth causes CO2 emissions. Causality runs from energy consumption to financial development, urbanization and population which in turn cause economic growth. From the result, CO2 emissions extenuation policy in Ethiopia should focus on environmentally friendly growth, enhancing consumption of cleaner energy, incorporating the impact of population, urbanization, trade and financial development.

This study analyzes the technical efficiency and production risk of 862 maize farmers in major maize producing regions of Ethiopia. It employs the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) to estimate the level of technical efficiencies of stallholder farmers. The stochastic frontier approach (SFA) uses flexible risk properties to account for production risk. Thus, maize production variability is assessed from two perspectives, the production risk and the technical efficiency. The study also attempts to determine the socio-economic and farm characteristics that influence technical efficiency of maize production in the study area. The findings of the study showed the existence of both production risk and technical inefficiency in maize production process. Input variables (amounts per hectare) such as fertilizer and labor positively influence maize output. The findings also show that farms in the study area exhibit decreasing returns to scale. Fertilizer and ox plough days reduce output risk while labor and improved seed increase output risk. The mean technical efficiency for maize farms is 48 percent. This study concludes that production risk and technical inefficiency prevents the maize farmers from realizing their frontier output. The best factors that improve the efficiency of the maize farmers in the study area include: frequency of extension contact, access to credit and use of intercropping. It was also realized that altitude and terracing in maize farms had influence on farmer efficiency.

This study was conducted to assess variability among linear body measurements (LBMs), deduce components that describe these traits, and investigate the inter-relationship among them. For this purpose, seventeen LBM traits namely heart girth, body-length, wither-height, ear-length, forelimb-length, hindlimb-length, barrel-girth, face-length, hip-width, chest-width, chest-depth, tail-length, neck-length, hump-length, hump-circumference, forehoof-circumference and hindhoof-circumference were measured on 300 (51 males and 249 females) camels. PC factor analysis was used to describe the variation in LBM traits where extracted factors were varimax rotated to enhance interpretability. Pearson’s correlation coefficients among the traits were positive and very highly significant. From the factor analysis, two principal components (PCs) were extracted, which accounted for 63.2% of the total variance. PC1 accounted for 57.0% of the total observed variance and was loaded by EL, BL, FL, HL, FLL, WH, CD, NL, and HC; while PC2 contributed 6.1% of the total observed variance and had its loading on HG, BG, and HW. The results obtained from this study could be useful in designing appropriate husbandry, selection, and breeding programs for utilization of camel genetic resources.