Investigating Farmers’ Characteristics Affecting Their Linkage with Researchers in Agricultural Innovation in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the second most populated country having more than 90 million people in Africa. Ethiopian economy largely depends on agriculture. Agriculture accounts for 90% of exports and 85% of employment while 90% of the people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Low agricultural productivity is the major problem for food insecurity emanating from the use of traditional farming practices, lack of appropriate technologies, low adoption of agricultural innovations, and lack of strong linkage between researchers and farmers. The linkage between farmers and researchers is affected by experiences of farmers with previous research projects, farmers’ perception for researchers, the degree of farmers’ involvement in research projects and farmers’ characteristics. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify key factors related to farmers’ characteristics hindering the linkage of farmers with researchers in agricultural innovation in Ethiopia using the agricultural innovation system (AIS) framework. A qualitative research design was used. The research revealed that attitude of farmers for researchers, farmers’ attitude for research, bad experiences of farmers in the past, lack of sufficient time and farmers’ expectation were the farmers’ characteristics affecting the linkage of farmers with researchers in agricultural research innovation.