DETERMINANTS OF THE USE OF LIVESTOCK MANURE FOR SOIL FERTILITY MANAGEMENT AT HOUSEHOLD LEVEL IN BOREDA WOREDA, GAMO ZONE, SOUTH ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Livestock manure is major source of organic fertilizer component in Ethiopia. However, the utilization of manure for soil fertility management was too low compared to the number of livestock they owned. Whereas the price of inorganic fertilizer has increased with time, agricultural productivity decreased leading to food insecurity. Therefore, the main objective of this study was assessing a factor that determines the use of livestock manure for soil fertility management in Boreda woreda of Gamo zone. In order to attain this study, 140 representative households selected using systematic linear sampling technique. Both primary and secondary data was collected through household survey, focus group discussion and field observation. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to identify determinants and data analyzed by using SPSS version 26. The finding indicated that age of household head, farm distance from home, educational background of farmers and ecology farmers the settled were significantly influenced the utilization of livestock manure for soil fertility management. But the sex of household, number of livestock, number of active family size and farm size were insignificantly influence utilization of livestock manure. It concluded that manure utilization for soil fertility management was poor in study area. Therefore, it can be recommended that government and non-governmental organizations should give high attention to improve farmers’ practices of livestock manure utilization.