Measurement of Knowledge of Farmers on Chickpea
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cien ral S ce u an lt d u ic F r o Kebede and Amare, J Agri Sci Food Res 2018, 9:3 g o A d f R o e Journal of Agricultural Science and l s a e n a r r u c o h J Food Research Research Article Open Access Measurement of Knowledge of Farmers on Chickpea Demonstration at Adola Rede District, Guji Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia Kebede B* and Amare G Bore Agricultural Research Center, P.O Box 21, Bore, Ethiopia *Corresponding author: Kebede B, Bore Agricultural Research Center, PO Box 21, Bore, Ethiopia, Tel: +251114707102; E-mail: [email protected] Rec date: June 18, 2018; Acc date: September 17, 2018; Pub date: September 30, 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Kebede B, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Chickpea is important as food and feed crop for farmers. The crop is also significant for generating income due to its high market demand. Guji Zone has potential of chickpea production, but the yield of chickpea is low due to absence of improved seed and lack of knowledge on chickpea production. Thus, this study was instigated to demonstrate new varieties of chickpea to local farmers aligned to measure farmers’ knowledge on chickpea production. To measure farmers’ knowledge on chickpea the issue of capacity building such as trainings, field visit, exchange visit and field days were organized to capacitate farmers’ knowledge on chickpea demonstrated varieties. 36 items test were prepared on chickpea production and administrated to 24 farmers who were participants during the demonstration of chickpea on their land. Items contains yes or no, true or false and explain types. Each correct answer was given ‘1’ score while wrong answer was awarded ‘0’ mark. Finally, 15 knowledge items test were selected based on the difficulty index which ranges from 45 to 92, discrimination index above 0.20 and point bi-serial correlation coefficient significant at 0.1%, 0.05 and 0.001% level for final knowledge test. The reliability of the knowledge test was measured by split-half method and reliability coefficient (r=0.969) which indicates that this knowledge test is quite reliable. The result of this study revealed that majority of farmers (83.33%) owned moderate level of knowledge on chickpea production. Farmers Training Center established in each Kebele should be functioned to increase farmers’ knowledge on chickpea production. Keywords: Knowledge; Reliability; Item analysis; Chickpea; yield of chickpea in Ethiopia are estimated to be 225607.53 hectares Demonstration and 444145.93 tons, respectively [8]. Despite its nutritional values, high economic importance, the national average yield of chickpea is still Introduction lower (1.97 t/ha; CSA, 2017) than its potential of up to 5 t/ha on experimental stations. Chickpea yields are limited by factors such as Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crops grown in pests, diseases, drought and yield improvement require compatible Ethiopia because of its multiple functions. It is a key component of the resilient varieties adapted to different agro-ecological zones [5]. The daily diet, and thus important protein source for Ethiopian households low yield of chickpea in Ethiopia was due to various production who cannot afford animal products. In Ethiopia chickpea grain is constraints including: low yield potential of landraces, lack of superior widely used in different forms as green vegetable (green immature varieties, their susceptibility to biotic and a biotic stresses and poor seed), “Kollo” (soaked and roasted) and “nifro” (boiled seeds) and cultural practices are some the serious constraints in chickpea “wot” (sauces) made up of “shiro” (powdered seeds) [1]. production [9]. Chickpea cultivation produces straw that is used as livestock feed. Production of chickpea have not been yet under production in the This straw is mainly used when there is drought and green fodder is potential areas of Guji zone [10]. In Adola Rede district of Guji Zone unavailable for livestock feeding. Recently, the studies of Megersa et al., the production of chickpea is not known by farmers. Thus, we Bereket and Abdirazak also stated that chickpea has a great economic proposed new varieties (Dalota and Habru) to the farmers by merit in Ethiopia providing a cheap source of protein for human diet demonstrating on the area of 100 m2 in 2017 and 2018 production and animal feed, and as a source of alternative cash income to the years. After adaptation of the technologies or varieties demonstration farmers and foreign currency to the country [2-5]. is needed to create awareness and publicize for further adoption of Another attractive feature of chickpea is its ability to fix atmospheric technologies. Demonstration means small area on which research nitrogen in symbiosis with rhizobia, contributing directly to grain activities are implemented on farmers’ land with active participation of protein and reducing the need for N fertilizer for subsequent crops. It farmers, development agents and other stakeholders who facilitate the thereby has great potential to improve soil N status [6]. Chickpea is knowledge transfer on the use, application of improved and often grown after wheat and tef are harvested on vertisols using appropriate technologies from researcher to the empowered farmers. residual moisture which extends the cropping season from September To implement this research activity, we gave two times training on the to December. As a result, growing chickpea allows the farmers to recommended packages of chickpea production for the selected produce extra crop on the same land [7]. farmers on demonstration of chickpea in the area. We also gave exchange visit and organized field days to capacitate the knowledge of Chickpea is a less labor-intensive crop and its production demands farmers on the chickpea production. Thus, to see the impact of these low external inputs compared to cereals. The total land coverage and trainings, exchange visit and field days this activity was initiated to J Agri Sci Food Res, an open access journal Volume 9 • Issue 3 • 1000239 Citation: Kebede B, Amare G (2018) Measurement of Knowledge of Farmers on Chickpea Demonstration at Adola Rede District, Guji Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. J Agri Sci Food Res 9: 239. Page 2 of 6 measure the level of knowledge of farmers on the new demonstration mark. Thus, total score secured by all individual farmers on 36 items of chickpea production. for correct answers was the knowledge score on chickpea production. The scores obtained by 24 farmers were arranged in descending order Research Methodology and divided into six groups i.e., 4 farmers in each group. The groups were named as G1, G2, G3, G4, G5 and G6. The range of score Description of study area obtained by the farmers of six groups were described in Table 1. Adola Rede district is 468 km away from the Addis Ababa to the Group number G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 South. The district is bordered by Ana Sora district in the North, Score range 34-35 33 31-32 29-30 26-28 20-25 Wadera district in the South and Odo Shakiso in the West and Girja Number of district in the East directions. The district has altitude range of 4 4 4 4 4 4 1350-2340 meter above sea level, annual mean of 1000 mm rainfall and farmers annual average of 28°C of temperature. Mixed farming, mining and forest product production were the major livelihood of Adola Rede Table 1: Chickpea knowledge range scores obtained by the farmers farmers. Adola district has diverse agro-ecologies which are suitable (N=24). for production of different crops. The rainfall pattern of the study area is bimodal for lowland and midland areas and uni-modal for highland For item analysis, the middle two groups G3 and G4 were parts. Sandy, clay and silt are the major soils of Adola Rede district. eliminated keeping four extreme groups with high and low scores. The The major crops produced in the area includes maize, tef, haricot bean, data related to the correct response for all the items in respect of these chat, coffee and the others. The black soil characteristics of the area four groups were tabulated for calculating the difficulty and make it potential for production of chickpea. discrimination indices. Selection of items for final format of the knowledge test was done based on the following criteria. Development of knowledge test Item difficulty index-P: The index of item difficulty was worked out Development of items: Items regarding chickpea production were as the percentage of the respondents answering an item correctly. The developed by Agricultural Extension Researchers of Bore Agricultural assumption in this item index of difficulty was that the difficulty is Research Center. 36 items were prepared based on uncertainty, linearly related to the level of farmer’s knowledge about chickpea simplicity and representativeness. English and English defined production. When a farmer answers an item, it was assured that the knowledge as a body of understood information possessed by an item was less difficult than his/her ability to cope with it. It was individual or by a culture [11]. Knowledge is totality of understood calculated by following formula: information possessed by an individual. A knowledge test has been defined by Bloom et al. as a test which refers to those behavior and test situation which emphasized the remembering by the recall of ideas, �� Where,�� = pi=Difficulty× 100 index1 in percentage of the ith item, ni= material or phenomena [12]. For this study knowledge was �� Number of respondents giving correct answer to ith item, Ni=Total operationalized as the amount of information owned, understood and number of respondents to whom the ith item was administered.