Farmers Attitude Towards Water Harvesting Technology in Sisena and Girar farmazigba Kebelle, Chaha Woreda, Gurage Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

The southern Ethiopia is characterized by erratic and uneven distribution of rain fall. Annual rainfall is sufficient for crop production but the highly variable distribution in time and space frequently threatens crop production and contribute to food insecurity. Water harvesting for supplemental irrigation is being considered by the Ethiopian government as an alternative and have been implemented throughout the country. Farmers adoption of promising agricultural technologies has been far from universal, and has remained particularly low among the poor. The main factors constraining agriculture and rural development are low productivity and output, the performance of rain-fed agriculture serious by intermittent drought arising from the several of nature. The study is motivated by the belief that the constraints of the low productivity leads to poverty and cannot be overcome by simply concentrating on the rain-fed agriculture. Therefore, the water issue needs to be addressed as well. Identification of factors affecting water harvesting practice is one of the major steps in identifying that increase crop production. In view of this, a study was done in Sisena and Girar farmazigba Kebelle, Chaha woreda gurage zone Ethiopia to assess the public attitude of water harvesting technology and the factor affecting of water harvesting technology. The study was conducted from March to June 2019 on 28 sample size selected from the study area. Structured questionnaire, in addition to physical observation, were developed to collect the required information from the households, development workers, key informants, kebele administrators and agronomy and irrigation experts from district office of agriculture to generate primary and secondary data for the study. Descriptive statistics such as percentage and table were used to describe sampled respondents in terms of some desirable variables. Generally, farmers have showed favorable attitude towards water harvesting practice in the study area. The finding of this study, indicate that the physical, institutional, technical, physiological and economic factors affecting water harvesting practice differ from the catchment situation and farmer to farmers. Moreover, the existence of difference in perception, opinion, attitude and decision are the major finding of this study.