Determinants of Inorganic Fertilizers Use

Increasing crop productivity is one of the options of improving food availability in Ethiopia. The growing gap between food demand and supply in Ethiopia is mainly attributed to the very low productivity of the agricultural sector. Fertilizer is one of the major productivity enhancing inputs. Although, emphasis was given by the government to promote the use of this modern technology for the last 40 years, farmers are still using low amount of fertilizer and yet there are a lot of farmers who are not applying commercial fertilizers. Therefore, the major concern of this study is to empirically examine the existing level of fertilizer use and identify factors influencing the decision of farmers to use fertilizer.