Retrospective Impact Assessment for Pilot Hydroponic Green Fodder Production in Sekota Woreda, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

The objective of the study was to assess the impact of hydroponic green feed production on the milk production and household income of small-scale farmers in Sekota Woreda (District) of Waghimra zone in Ethiopia. Hydroponic feed production is not a common way of animal feed production. However, an NGO called Action For Hunger (ACF) designed a project and introduced it in two Peasant Associations (PAs) or Kebeles in Sekota Woreda. The technique employs non-soil fodder production with the application of specialized nutrient solutions which replace nutrients that plants can get from the soil. Sekota Woreda under Waghimra zone is found in Amhara region, Ethiopia, characterized by recurrent drought, degraded topography, and minimal amount of vegetation coverage. It is paramount in providing alternative production techniques to small holders in the area and the project introduced non-soil-based animal feed production technique. The project selected totally 50 households for piloting the project. All participating farmers have been included on the impact assessment study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics techniques were employed to characterize beneficiaries and analyze the impact brought about to their livelihood by the project. Descriptive statistics techniques implemented such as mean, frequency, standard deviation, and cross tabulation techniques. Two-sample t test with equal variance assumption is used to analyze the impact in retrospective way of analysis. The results include about 60% of beneficiaries are Female and the rest are Male and most of them are either Widowed or Divorced. Participation criteria for the program were restocking beneficiary, female-headed household, affected by recurrent drought and elderly farmer. When it comes to the impact of the hydroponic feed production activity, it has brought statistically significant improvement in both cattle and goat milk production and the income from the sale of the milk produced by the intervention. Hence, it is recommended that either the project itself or other development practitioners should take the lesson from this activity and think about scaling up the project to other farmers within the District or other Districts within the area.