Impact of Wheat Row Planting on Yield of Smallholders in Arsi Zone of Ethiopia

Promotion and scaling up of wheat row planting is seen as best farming practice for increasing wheat yield in Ethiopia. Farmers have been practicing wheat row planting manually for the last three to five years. However, there is lack of empirical study on the impact of row planting on wheat yield compared to the conventional broadcast planting method. To fill this gap, this study estimates the impact of row planting on wheat yield of farmers. Cross-sectional survey data collected from randomly selected 133 farmers, logit model, and propensity score matching methods were used to achieve the objective of the study. The study obtained that wheat row planting has significant impact on wheat yield of farmers. The mean yield of row planted wheat was higher by 14.6 percent when compared to the mean yield of conventional broadcast planting method. It is recommended that other agronomic practices along with the row planting method need to be considered for increasing wheat yield as well as for the successful promotion, adoption and scaling up of wheat row planting practices.