Adoption of improved box hive technology: Analysis of smallholder farmers in Northern Ethiopia

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1 Internatonal Journal of Agrcultural Economcs and Extenson ISSN: Vol. (), pp , February, 014. Avalable onlne at Internatonal Scholars Journals Full Length Research Paper Adopton of mproved box hve technology: Analyss of smallholder farmers n Northern Ethopa Belets Gebremchael and Berhanu Gebremedhn Department of Agrbusness and Value Chan Management, Samara Unversty, Ethopa. Post-Doctoral Scentst-Agrcultural Economst at the Internatonal Lvestock Research Insttute, Adds Ababa, Ethopa. Accepted 9 January, 014 Ths study was ntated to analyze factors affectng decson and ntensty to adopt mproved box hve technology n Ahferom dstrct of northern Ethopa. Both prmary and secondary data sources were utlzed. Descrptve analyss and econometrc (Double-hurdle) model were employed usng SPSS-16 and STATA-11, respectvely. Of the 130 sample beekeepers, 54.6% and 45.4% were adopters and non-adopters, respectvely. Of the adopters category 67.6% hold both tradtonal and mproved hves, the rest 3.4% hold only mproved box hve. The mean number of mproved box hves was 3.10 hves for adopters and 1.69 hves for entre sample wth maxmum of 11. The frst hurdle result ndcated that other off/non-farm actvty, beekeepng experence, dstance to market and frequency of extenson contact were sgnfcantly affect adopton decson of mproved box hve. Moreover, the second hurdle result revealed that other off/nonfarm actvty, frequency of extenson contact, credt access, lvestock holdng, age, dstance to all weather roads were found to be sgnfcantly affect ntensty of adopton. Therefore, these sgnfcant factors n adopton of mproved box hve technology should be consdered by polcy-makers and planners of governmental and NGOs n settng ther polces and strateges of honey producton mprovement nterventons. Key words: Adopton, apculture, mproved box hve, smallholder beekeepers, double-hurdle model. INTRODUCTION Apculture s a promsng off-farm enterprse, whch drectly and ndrectly contrbutes to smallholder s ncome n partcular and naton s economy n general. It has sgnfcant role n generatng and dversfyng the ncome of subsstence Ethopan smallholder farmers manly the small land holders and landless (EARO, 000; Gezahegn, 001). In Ethopa tradtonal, transtonal and mproved beehves were recognzed for honey producton wth total of 5.15 mllon beehves (of 93% tradtonal) and the farm households keepng bees were 1.4 mllon. Endowng wth dverse agro-clmatc zones, the total honey and beeswax producton estmates about 39,700 and 3,800 tons per year. Such an amount puts the country 10 th n honey and 4 th n beeswax producton worldwde. Moreover, Ethopa has the potental to produce up to 500,000 tons of honey and 50,000 tons of Correspondng author. E-mal: belets11@yahoo.com beeswax per year (GDS, 009). In spte of the contrbuton and potental of the subsector, t s very tradtonal that the producton, productvty and qualty of hve produces have been low. Thus, the current Ethopan government has ncreased ts attenton to develop the apculture sub-sector as one of ts strateges for poverty reducton and export dversfcaton and dfferent NGOs have been ntervenng to assst the poor smallholder farmers through the ntroducton and promoton of box hve to obtan hgher honey producton of good qualty that can enable the smallholder farmers n partcular and the country n general to be benefted from the sub-sector (GDS, 009). Smlarly, great effort has been made by regonal government extenson package and Relef Socety of Tgray to promote mproved box hve technology n the regon to ncrease the quantty and qualty of honey producton and buld the capacty of beekeepers for better management of bees and hves for honey and beeswax producton (Gdey and Mokenen, 010). Even though all the efforts have been made at natonal

2 Belets & Berhanu 077 Fgure 1. Locaton map of the study dstrct. and regonal level to ntroduce mproved apculture technology, there has been no adequate study on addressng the dssemnaton of adopton of mproved box hve technology n the country, partcularly, n the study area. Therefore, the prmary objectve of the study was to analyze the factors affectng adopton decson and ntensty of usng mproved box hve technology by the smallholder beekeepers. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The Study Area Ahferom dstrct (presented n fgure 1) s among the major honey producng dstrcts n Tgray regon next to Klte-Awlaello and Atsb-Wombert dstrcts and also among potentally the most promsng areas for the producton of honey next to Tselemt and Medebay-Zana dstrcts. However, up to around a decade back all beekeepers of the dstrct were only engaged n tradtonal producton system (OoARD, 009) though mproved box hve has been ntroduced and promoted n the country snce 1970 to overcome the low producton, productvty and qualty of honey (HBRC, 1997). Samplng Technque and Data Collecton Mult-stage samplng procedure was used to select sample smallholder beekeepers for ntervew. Ahferom dstrct was selected purposvely based on the honeybee producton potental, avalablty of bee flora and mproved box hve promoton. Excludng fve Tabas that were affected by the Etho-Ertrea conflct, four Tabas were selected randomly out of the remanng rural Tabas. In the selected Tabas, the beekeepers were stratfed nto non-adopters and adopters of mproved box hve sub-groups. Havng the lst of beekeepers from each Taba, 130 sample beekeepers (59 non-adopters and 71 adopters) were selected randomly based on the probablty proportonal to sze samplng technque from the selected Tabas. Both prmary and secondary data sources and qualtatve and quanttatve data types were utlzed for ths study. Prmary data were obtaned from sample respondents durng March to Aprl 011 by usng semstructured questonnare through ntervew method. Secondary data were gathered from varous sources such as reports of MoA at dfferent levels, CSA, dstrct OoARD, NGOs, prevous research fndngs, Internet and other publshed and unpublshed materals. Method of Data Analyss Specfcaton of Econometrc Models In prncple, the decsons of whether to adopt and how much to adopt can be made jontly or separately. It can be argued that adopton and ntensty of use decsons are not necessarly made jontly (Berhanu and Swnton, 003). The tobt model used to analyze under the assumpton that the two decsons are affected by the same set of factors (Green, 1993). In the double-hurdle model, on the other hand, both hurdles have equatons assocated wth them, ncorporatng the effects of farmer's characterstcs and crcumstances. Such explanatory var-

3 078 Int. J. Agrc. Econ. Extenson Table 1. Summary of dependent and ndependent varables used n double-hurdle model. Varable Code Type Measurement Adopton decson of mproved box hve D Dummy Non-adopter=0, adopter=1 Number of mproved box hve Y Contnuous Number Household head sex SEX Dummy Female=0, male=1 Household head age AGE Contnuous Years Household head educatonal status EDUC Dummy 0 = llterate, 1 = lterate Household head leadershp partcpaton LEADP Dummy No=0, Yes=1 Total famly sze FAMLYSIZ Contnuous Number Workng labor force LABFORC Contnuous Number Other off/non-farm actvty nvolvement OFFACT Dummy No=0, Yes=1 Household farm sze FARMSIZ Contnuous Hectares Households lvestock holdng TLU Contnuous TLU Beekeepng experence BEEKEEXP Contnuous Years Number of bee colones BEECOLO Contnuous Number Frequency of extenson contact FREQCONT Contnuous Number per month Dstance to farmers tranng center DISTFTC Contnuous Klometers Dstance to nearest market DISTMKT Contnuous Klometers Dstance to dstrct town DISTWRDA Contnuous Klometers Dstance to all weathered road DISTROAD Contnuous Klometers Rado, TV and/or moble ownershp RTVMOBIL Dummy No=0, Yes=1 ables may appear n both equatons or n ether of one. Most promnently, a varable appearng n both equatons may have opposte effects n the two equatons. The double-hurdle model, ntally due to Cragg (1971), has been extensvely appled n several studes such as (Burton et al., 1996; Newman et al., 001; Mofatt, 003). Halemaram et al. (006) was among those who employed double-hurdle n studyng mproved poultry breeds adopton n Ethopa. The double-hurdle model s a parametrc generalzaton of the tobt model, n whch two separate stochastc processes determne the decson to adopt and the level of adopton of technology. The double-hurdle model has an adopton (D) equaton: D Z U (1) Where D s a dummy varable that takes the value 1 f the farmer adopts mproved box hve and zero otherwse, Z s a vector of household characterstcs and α s a vector of parameters. The level of adopton (Y) has an equaton of the followng: Y X V Y Y fy 0 & D 0 Y 0, otherwse () where Y s the observed varable to be the proporton of mproved box hve, X s a vector of the ndvdual's characterstcs and β s a vector of parameters. The error terms, U and V are dstrbuted as follows: U V ~ N(0,1) ~ N(0, ) (3) Fnally, the observed varable Y n the double-hurdle model s determned by; Y D Y (4) The log-lkelhood functon for the double-hurdle model s: ' ' ' ' 1 Log L n 1 ( ) n ( ) 0 (5) Where 0 ndcates summaton over the zero observatons n the sample, whle + ndcates summaton over postve observatons, and Φ (.) and φ (.) are the standard normal cumulatve dstrbuton functons and probablty dstrbuton functons, respectvely. Under the assumpton of ndependence between the error terms V and U, the model as orgnally proposed by (Cragg, 1971) s equvalent to a combnaton of a truncated regresson model and a unvarate Probt model. The tobt model, as presented above, arses f andx Z. A smple test for the double-hurdle model aganst the tobt model can be used. Therefore, one smply has to estmate the truncated regresson model; the tobt model and the tobt model separately and use a lkelhood rato (LR) test. The LR-statstc can be computed usng (Green, 000): n L ( nl n L ) ~ T P TR k (6)

4 Belets & Berhanu 079 Fgure (a). Improved box hve. Fgure (b). Tradtonal beehve. where L T - lkelhood for the tobt model; L P - lkelhood for the probt model; L TR - lkelhood for the truncated regresson model and k s the number of ndependent varables n the equatons. If the test hypothess s wrtten as; H 0 :, and. H 0 wll be rejected on a prespecfed sgnfcance level, f k. The dependent and ndependent varables used n double-hurdle model were defned n table 1. RESULT AND DISCUSSION Descrptve Results of the Study Of 130 smallholder beekeepers ncluded n the survey, 54.6% and 45.4% were adopters and non-adopters, respectvely. Besdes, wthn the adopters category 67.6% owned both tradtonal (fgure (b)) and mproved hves (fgure (a)) wth honeybee colones whereas the rest 3.4% owned only mproved box hve. The mean proporton of mproved box hve was 0.70 and 0.38 for adopters and whole sample, respectvely wth maxmum of 13 beehves. Whereas the mean number of mproved box hves was 3.10 and 1.69 hves for adopters and entre sample, respectvely wth maxmum of 11 mproved box hves. Furthermore, the total number of beehves sample beekeepers hold was 61 (0 mproved and 401 tradtonal) hves wth bee colony and 9 ( mproved and 7 tradtonal) hves wthout bee colony due to bee colony not beng transferred and bee colony abscondng. Thus, the occupatonal rates of the mproved and tradtonal hves were 90.9% and 98.3%, respectvely. The average number of beehves wth bee colones for the total sample smallholder beekeepers was around 5 (3 tradtonal and mproved) wth mnmum of 1 and maxmum of 13 beehves. In the study area, tradtonal beehve requres a range of accessores, namely, smoker, knfe, fork, honey contaners, bee brush and queen cage. Some of these accessores (smoker, bee brush and queen cage) were constructed by the beekeepers and the remanng (knfe, fork and honey contaner) were purchased from local markets. All respondents n the study area have never used recommended accessores for tradtonal honey producton. On the other hand, mproved box hve demands more addtonal accessores than tradtonal beehve. These ncludes smoker, bee vel, hgh boots, glove, overalls, bee brush, water sprayer, queen catcher, decappng knfe, honey presser, honey extractor, castng mold and uncappng fork. But most of the ntervewed respondents were lackng these accessores. It was found durng the survey that, apart from the known basc box hve tools, many of the accessores was ether nonexstent or kept by qute few numbers of respondents. Partcularly, the honey extractor and castng mold was reserved at FTC of each Taba. The productvty of beehve per year vares from locaton to locaton, whch n most case s determned by the avalablty of bee flora, the level of management and harvestng system and nput technology used. Honey s harvested n the study area from October to November each year (the peak perod) and rarely harvested n May (preparaton for the next producton). The frequency of harvestng honey per hve n the same area and year s also dfferent among beekeepers. About 46.9% of the sample beekeepers harvest twce a year and 48.5% of them harvest

5 080 Int. J. Agrc. Econ. Extenson Table. Test of double-hurdle model versus tobt model. Tobt, 0 Y 1 Probt, D Truncated Regresson, (Y>0) LOG-L Number of observaton (N) ,16 Double-hurdle versus tobt test statstc: Γ = > =3.00 Source. Model output, 01. only once n a year durng the study year. Only 4.6% of the beekeepers harvest three tmes per year. Honey productvty of tradtonal and mproved hves s markedly dfferent; that s, the average honey productvty of tradtonal beehve per hve per year was 1.56kg wth the maxmum productvty of kg. It was also fgured out that the average productvty of mproved box hve per hve per year was 6.04kg wth the maxmum productvty of 48kg. Accordngly, the average annual productvty of mproved box hve was more than twce of the average annual productvty of tradtonal beehve. However, the area has a potental of producng up to 55kg per hve per year. Honey harvested by the sample farmers n the study area was nevtable for multpurpose. Except for the nconsderable amount that was extended as a gft, much of the collected honey was consumed and sold durng harvestng perod. However, the amount of honey sold was much more than the amount of honey consumed by the households. Thus, the total amount of honey produced by the sample beekeepers was around 10,530kg, of whch, , and 39kg was consumed, sold and gven as a gft by the sample respondents, respectvely. Moreover, sample farmers earned annual ncome from beekeepng actvtes by sellng honey or both honey and bee colones. As the result presents, adopters sold sgnfcantly larger amount of honey (86.07kg) than non-adopters (53.88kg). As a result, adopters ( ETB) obtaned sgnfcantly hgher beekeepng ncome than non-adopters ( ETB). Econometrc Models Results Based on the log-lkelhood values of the two models estmated, the LR-test results suggest the rejecton of the tobt model. That s, the test statstc Γ = exceeds the crtcal value of the χ dstrbuton (Table ). As Table 3 ndcate, regardng age of the farmers, t can be observed that age has a parabolc effect on the level of mproved box hve adopton wth a turnng pont of 48 years even though age s nsgnfcant n the decson to adopt. Ths mples that farmers aged above 48 years are most lkely to have lower level of mproved box hve. The result supports the hypothess that wth the expectaton of rsk averson behavor of aged farmers for fear of abscondng and other unexpected events, t s uncertan for these farmers to ncrease the number of mproved box hve as age of the farmers ncrease beyond the turnng pont. On the other hand, nvolvement on off/non-farm actvtes other than beekeepng passes both hurdles and postvely affected the decson to adopt at 5% sgnfcant level, but negatvely affected ntensty of use of mproved box hve at 1% sgnfcant level. Ths mght be due to farmers partcpated n other off/non-farm actvtes earn addtonal ncome and purchase mproved technologes. As a result, more probably decde to adopt mproved box hve. However, ths mght not be true for ntensty of use of mproved box hve technology. Beekeepng experence appears n both hurdles wth unexpected negatve sgn but only sgnfcant n decson to adopt mproved box hve at 5%. Ths result mples that more experenced beekeepers n tradtonal honey producton system mght be reluctant to accept new deas and adopt new technologes than less tradtonally experenced beekeepers rather they are more mmersed to contnue wth the tradtonal producton system. The varable frequency of extenson contact shows sgnfcant effect wth expected postve sgn n each model, that s sgnfcant at 1% and 5% for the frst and second hurdle, respectvely. Ths result of margnal effect ndcates that a unt ncrease n farmer s contact wth extenson agents per month ncreased the probablty of adopton by 45.8%, ntensty of use of mproved box hve by one box hve per household. The larger effect of apculture extenson servce on the adopton of mproved box hve technology may be explaned by the dfferent honey producton mprovement tranngs, workshops and apary vsts played a role n adopton decson and ntensty of use of mproved box hve technology. As expected, the dstance of farmers resdence from the nearest market center was negatvely and sgnfcantly assocated wth mproved box hve adopton decson. The margnal effect of ths varable ndcated that, other varables beng constant, as the dstance of the farmers resdence from the nearest market far by one klometer, the probablty of farmers to adopt mproved box hve decreased by 5.1%. Ths s due to the fact that as the farmers resde far from the nearest market, the transport cost for sellng ther output would be hgh whch, n turns, to reduce farmers decson to adopt mproved

6 Belets & Berhanu 081 Table 3. Maxmum lkelhood estmaton of double-hurdle model of adopton decson and ntensty of use of mproved box hve technology. Probt model result Varables Coeffcents Robust Std.Err. Margnal effect Truncated regresson result Coeffcents Robust Std.Err. SEX AGE AGE EDUC LEADP FAMYSIZ LABFORC OFFACT FARMSIZ TLU BEEKEEXP DISTMKT DISTROAD RTVMOBIL FREQCONT P SERV P _CONS /SIGMA Log-L = Number of obs. = 130 Wald ch (16) = Prob>ch = Correctly predcted = 58.4% P = predcted value Truncated regresson P = predcted value Lmt: lower=0, upper = +nf Number of obs = 71 Wald ch(16) = Log-L = Prob> ch = , and refers statstcally sgnfcant at 10%, 5% and 1% respectvely. Source. model output, 01. box hve. However, dstance to all weather roads postvely and sgnfcantly affect the ntensty of use of mproved box hve technology. Ths mght be as resdences of beekeepers far from all weather roads there s the probablty that the vcntes densely covered wth dfferent vegetatons whch are sources of honeybee feeds. As the same tme honeybees are hghly senstve to car sound dsturbance n whch results n bee colones abscondng. Wth ths observaton, beekeepers resdes far from the man roads substantally ntensfy ther mproved honey producton. Although, access to credt nsgnfcant n nfluencng decson to adopt, turned out to be sgnfcant n the ntensty of use of mproved box hve. As the credt condton of smallholder farmers changes, the ntensty of use of mproved box hve ncreased by seven box hve per household. The mplcaton of ths result clarfes that avalablty of credt servce would be expected to mnmze lqudty constrant, as a result, promotes the ncrease n the number of mproved box hve. Smlarly, other lvestock holdng sgnfcantly affect ntensty of use of mproved box hve at 10%. Under the ceters parbus condton, as the farmer ncreases hs/her lvestock holdng by one TLU the number of mproved box hve ncreased by 0. box hve. As the lvestock holdng was consdered as a proxy for farmers wealth status, hghly wealthy status farmers can earn more cash-ncome that mght enable them to ntensfy mproved apculture. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the fndngs of the study, the followng recommendatons are suggested to be consdered by

7 08 Int. J. Agrc. Econ. Extenson Governmental and Non-governmental Organzatons n ther future nterventon strateges amed at ntroducng of mproved box hve technology to mprove honey producton n the study area n partcular and other areas wth smlar settngs. Frequent follow-up by the extenson agents should be gven to reach the technology to every smallholder beekeeper and to ncrease the number of mproved box hve by adopters. Ths mples, for an effectve nformaton communcaton, the relatonshp between farmers and extenson agents must be mproved, encourage farmers to partcpate n dfferent extenson programs regardng apculture mprovement. Credt servce must be offered to adopters n order to ntensfy the technology and counsel the development of rural mcro-fnance to promote not only to provde credt at reasonable terms of repayment and nterest rate but also savngs. Strengthenng rural-urban road network and transport facltes to promote adopton of mproved honey producton s recommended. However, apary ste should not be near to road sdes as much as possble to protect abscondng. Targetng young farmers for nterventon of mproved box hve technology ntensfcaton s probably advsable. More attenton must be gven to less tradtonally experenced beekeepers for rapd decson to adopt mproved box hve and great effort should be made by the concerned bodes to tradtonally experenced beekeepers to utlze new deas whch helps them n adopton decson. Prorty must be gven for other off/non-farm actvtes nvolved farmers to adopt rapdly n whch they have fnancal capacty; and the lmted resources that were utlzed by other off/non-farm actvtes should be redrected to mproved honey producton expanson actvtes even though honey producton actvty s among the least resource competng off-farm actvtes. Efforts should be made to mprove apculture sub-sector through promotng lvestock sub-sector. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Burton MR, Young T (1996). Changng preferences for meat: evdence from UK household data ( ). European Revew of Agrcultural Economcs. 3(3): Cragg J (1971). Some statstcal models for lmted dependent varables wth applcaton to the demand for durable goods. Econometrcs. 39: EARO (Ethopan Agrcultural Research Organzaton) (000). Apculture Research Strategy Document, Adds Ababa, Ethopa. GDS (Global Development Solutons) (009). Integrated value chan analyses for honey and beeswax producton n Ethopa and prospects for exports the Netherlands Development Organzaton (SNV). Gezahegn T (001). Beekeepng (In Amharc), Mega Prnter Enterprse, Adds Ababa, Ethopa. Gdey Y, Mekonen T (010). Partcpatory technology and constrants assessment to mprove the lvelhood of beekeepers n Tgray regon, Northern Ethopa. Bology Department, College of Natural and Computatonal Scences, Mekelle Unversty, Ethopa. (1): Green W (1993). Econometrc Analyss, nd ed. Macmllan, New York. Green W (000). Econometrc Analyss, 4 th ed. Macmllan, New York. Halemaram T, Legesse D, Alemu Y, Negusse D (006). Determnants of adopton of poultry technology: a double-hurdle approach. Debre-Zet Agrcultural Research Center, Debre Zet, Ethopa. HBRC (Holeta Bee Research Center) (1997). Beekeepng Tranng Manual. Holeta, Ethopa. Mofatt PG (003). Hurdle models of loan default. School of Economc and Socal Studes. Unversty of East Angela. moffat,pdf. Newman C, Henchon M, Matthews A (001). Infrequency of purchase and double-hurdle models of Irsh households' meat expendture. European Revew of Agrcultural Economcs. 8(4): OoARD (Offce of Agrculture and Rural Development) (009). Report of Ahferom dstrct Offce of Agrculture and Rural Development. The authors express ther deepest grattude to Haramaya Unversty n collaboraton wth Ethopan Mnstry of Educaton for grantng them the research fund. REFERENCES Berhanu G, Swnton SM (003). Investment n sol conservaton n Northern Ethopa: the role of land tenure securty and publc programme. Agrcultural Economcs. 9: