Adoption of potato varieties in West and Kellem Wollega Zones, Ethiopia

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the possible food security crops which provide high yield and quality product in short period of time. Due to the lack of clearly known best varieties of it, its adoption to farmers is very less. The present study was conducted to assess the type of potato farmers prefer, adoption of released potato varieties and its management practices in west and Kellem Wollega Zones, Ethiopia. Survey was carried out in Ayira, Yubdo, Hawa Gelan, Dale Wabara and Dale Sadi woreda where four kebeles were purposively selected based on the potato farming potential. Open and close ended interview questions were generated for 384 selected representative farmers. Data was analyzed by SPSS software. The result showed that, 97.6% of the farmers have willing to farm potato. 47.3% and 22.7% of them experienced to farm local potato (land race) and released potato varieties, respectively. Farmers use landrace potato due to less awareness to released potato and accessibility of local potato. 70.1% of farmers responded there is no adoption of released potato in the area. Factors hindering potato farming in the study area are potato disease and lack of released potato. The least method used by farmers is use of resistant potato. Generally, there is scarcity of released potato seeds indicating that there is no its adoption in the study site. This problem is enforcing farmers to use local potato varieties which may not resist above stated hindering factors and make farmers to face food insecurity problems and economic reduction. Therefore, improving locally existing potato or attracting the improved potato varieties from elsewhere to the zones may be a solution of its adoption.