Income Contribution of Bamboo (Arundinaria alpine) Based Agroforestry Practice in Dawuro Zone, South West Ethiopia

Ethiopia has over one million hectares of highland and lowland bamboo resources. Although the role of bamboo has not been well documented as an integral part of the economy of Ethiopia, it plays a very important role socially, economically and ecologically in areas where it occurs naturally and as plantation. However, the use of this abundant resource is largely restricted to the household level and it is not well studied at the country level about its major socioeconomic, ecological roles and it influences on physicochemical properties of the soil. Therefore, this study was one such attempt; it determines the relative contribution of bam­boo income to house­hold annual cash in­come. Sampling was based on a multistage sampling approach. The first and the second stage involved purposeful selection woredas, and Kebeles respectively, which were based on availability of bamboo, based agroforestry practice such as bamboo woodlot and boundary plantation. Accordingly two sites (Kebeles) were selected and 15% sample households from each of the KA were selected. A total of 112households (HHs) was selected using stratified random sampling. The Commonly used techniques for valuing the annual value of bamboo raw and products were the income approach or products and services approach. The result indicates that annual cash income from bamboo accounted about 19%. Linear regression model was used to see the effects of a number of socioeconomic and biophysical variables on bamboo income generated per households. Among the various characteristics considered Land size was positively and significantly related to household income gain from bamboo tree and products (P < 0.05). Keywords: Agroforestry, Bamboo, Incom