Determinants of wheat yield variation of smallholders in South Eastern Ethiopia: application of ordered logistic regression

Abstract

There is high wheat yield variation among smallholders in the study area. The yield gap is mainly due to socio-economic, farm inputs utilization and institutional service characteristics of the farmers. This study identifies the determinant factors that affect the probability of wheat yield tends to be relatively low, medium or high given a set of yield influencing   factors. Cross-sectional  data collected from randomly selected farm households and ordered logistic regression were used to attain the objective of the study. The study found out that seed rate, rates of herbicides and fungicides applications, use of hand weeding and agro-ecological location of household were significant factors that determine the probability of wheat yield level to be low, medium or high. The findings imply that agro-ecology based seed rate, weed and disease management efforts are needed to improve wheat yield provided that the recommended rates of seed, herbicides and fungicides are properly applied.

Keywords: Wheat, Determinants for yield variation, Ordered logit, Ethiopia