Factors Affecting the Perception of Farmers on Improved Soybean Varieties in Bako Area, West Shewa, Ethiopia

Soybean is one of the most important pulse crops categorized under oil crop. Ethiopia has an enormous potential for production of pulse crops in general and soybean in particular and it is also among the most important export crops. Despite the high production potential and the economic importance of the crop, soybean producers particularly small scale farmers did not economically benefited significant amount from its production. as such Low production and productivity, which is mainly associated with perception of farmers on improved technologies and poor marketing system. To this end, the objectives of this study were: to examine and document the experience of perception farmers on improved soybean varieties, analyse the determining factors that affect the perception of improved soybean production and assess the perception of farmers about improved soybean crop. Two stage sampling procedure were followed to select rural kebeles and households for the study. Four rural kebeles were selected purposively and 120 household heads were selected randomly using probability proportional to size sampling. Semi-Structured interview schedule were developed, pre-tested and used for collecting the essential quantitative data for the study from the sampled households. Focus group discussions on soybean production and marketing were used to generate qualitative data. The result of the study indicated that about 51.7% of the sample respondents were positive perception of the improved soybean varieties, while 48.3 % negative perceptions. The focuses of the study were on the importance of demographic, social and institutional factors that affect the perception of improved soybean varieties in Bako areas. Therefore, policy and development interventions should give emphasis to improvement of such institutional support system so as to achieve wider perception increased productivity and income to small scale farmers Keywords: Perception, Soybean, Bako DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/94-02 Publication date: February 29th 202