Farmers' opinion on seed potato management attributes in Ethiopia: a conjoint analysis

A low adoption of recommended seed potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) technologies in Ethiopia could be due to a lack of alternative seed potato production methods compatible with farmers’ economic and agro-ecological conditions. A conjoint analysis (a technique used to measure relative contribution of product attributes) was conducted to elicit farmers’ opinions on management attributes that they believed to affect yield and quality of potato. The study involved interviewing 324 farmers who grew seed potato in Jeldu and Welmera districts. The results showed that management attributes, such as storage method, hoeing combined with hill size, fertilizer rate (FR) and fungicide application (FA) frequency had larger effect on seed yield and quality than seed source, seed size, sprouting method, tillage frequency, and planting date. In both districts, using diffused light storage (DLS); hoeing twice, combined with big hills; and using recommended FR, combined with two FAs had significant positive effects on yield and quality of seed potato. In both districts, if all farmers switched to the best management attribute levels, potential increases in seed yield would be about two times the actual seed yield produced in 2010. The results suggest that it is possible to design better methods to produce seed potato compared with methods that farmers currently use. Extension personnel could use these results to recommend to farmers those management attributes that are the most important to improve yield and quality of seed potato in Ethiopi