Factors driving farmers’ willingness to use organic liquid fertilizer (eco-green) in agricultural production in East Gojjam, north-western Ethiopia

Abstract Background: Recently, the government of Ethiopia has started promoting the use of eco-green organic liquid fertilizer in response to high price hikes and shortage of supply of chemical fertilizer. However, the factors driving farmers to apply eco-green organic fertilizer to crop production are poorly studied. Hence, this study aims to identify factors influencing farmers to use eco-green fertilizers. Methodology: This study used a multi-stage sampling technique to select the study area and sample respondents. The primary data was collected from randomly selected organic liquid fertilizer users and non-user households through structured and semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. Secondary data was collected from documents, publications, and websites. Binary Logit regression was used to analyze the factors deriving farmers’ willingness to use eco-green organic fertilizer. Result: According to the model result, annual income, membership to cooperatives, training access, information access, cost of chemical fertilizer, and landholding size positively influenced farmers to use eco-green fertilizer. While access to chemical fertilizers and low levels of awareness about eco-green were negatively influencing farmers’ willingness to use eco-green fertilizers in the study area. Conclusion : This result implies that to benefit farmers from organic fertilization, interventions that provided better technical training, better access to information media, and farmers’ group membership were crucial factors influencing farmers to apply eco-green fertilizer. The outcome of this study is expected to benefit farmers, extension agents, eco-green producer companies, input suppliers, and other agricultural growth stakeholders.