Impact Assessment of Adoption of Improved Varieties of Millet in North Kordofan State Sudan

This study was carried out with the objective to assessment the impacts of adoption of improved varieties of millet on the farm income of households in three localities of Sheikan, Umrawaba and Elrahad in the North Kordofan State. Data for this study was primarily from farm household surveys conducted in seven seasons (2006/2007 to 2014/2015) in three localities of Sheikan, ElRahad and UmRawaba in North Kordofan State. A random sample of 794 households was randomly drawn from different villages in the study area. Multi-stage random approach was adopted. Treatment effect regression was used to assess the impact of adoption of improved varieties in the study area. Analysis was completed using STATA12 and SPSS22 software packages to draw results and test hypotheses. Factors which positively affected farmers’ decision to adoption improved varieties of millet were education (0.016), attending training (0.223), family members male (0.004) and sex of HH (0.198), Income from farm increased by 29727.86 SDG per year as a result of adoption of millet improved varieties. Area of improved varieties would increase by 9.63 Hectare per year as a result of adoption improved varieties of millet. DOI: 10.32474/CIACR.2018.04.000193 Curr Inves Agri Curr Res Copyrights@ Salih Elagab Elsheikh, et al. Citation: Salih Elagab E, Hamid H F, ElRasheed A F. Impact Assessment of Adoption of Improved Varieties of Millet in North Kordofan State Sudan. Curr Inves Agri Curr Res 4(4)2018. CIACR.MS.ID.000193. DOI: 10.32474/CIACR.2018.04.000193. 572 feature of farming in North Kordofan is continuous deterioration in the natural resources base and production. Such deterioration has resulted from various influential factors, among them are poor genetic resources, biophysical factors including topography, low rainfall, soil quality, insect, diseases. To answer the below key questions, studies are required to be conducted in the area but accessed information does not show that such adoption studies have been conducted in North Kordofan state in general and Sheikan, Elrahad and Umrawaba localities, in particular to identify the determinants the impact of adoption of improved varieties of millet on the farm income. Objectives of the study The overall objective of this study is to measure the impacts of adoption improved varieties on the yields of millet and household income and. The study also aims to achieve the following specific objectives: a) To identify and analyze socioeconomic factors that influences the adoption of improved varieties of millet among farmers. b) To understand the factors that determines the adoption and intensity of use of improved varieties of millet. c) To study the impact of adoption on yield and household incomes. d) To provide policy makers and related institutions with a clear picture of the impact of adopted improved varieties on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.


Introduction
There has been much discussion on the need to increase productivity and sustainability in agriculture globally in the medium to long terms, but much less information is available on specific means to achieve this aim. Increasing agricultural productivity is critical to meet expected rising demand and, as such, it is instructive to examine recent performance in cases of modern agricultural technologies (FAO, 2011). In Sudan, sorghum, millet, groundnut and sesame yields per unit area of land are higher at research level and well managed farms than in typical farmers' fields. The yield gap is mainly attributed to ineffective extension and technology transfer, lack of access to inputs, poor access to finance, and problems related to marketing.
The rain-fed farming sector in Kordofan region has been contributing considerably to the country's annual crop production.
Other crops grown in the region include roselle, cowpea, and cotton.

Problem Statement
In general, agricultural production and productivity could be increased by allocation of more resources to agriculture and improvement of agricultural technology which requires more investment in education, health and infrastructure. In the context of Sudan profile, various governments have declared a policy aiming at self-sufficiency in food. The means towards achieving this objective has always been an expansion in cultivated area and/or improvement in yield.
It is no longer possible to meet the needs of increasing numbers of the world population and to achieve food security objectives by expanding areas under cultivation since the fertile land is not increasing over time. But this problem can only be better solved by increasing agricultural productivity of farm households. Still, achieving agricultural productivity growth will not be possible without developing and disseminating yield-increasing technologies and application of these technologies by farm households. A main

Abstract
This study was carried out with the objective to assessment the impacts of adoption of improved varieties of millet on the farm income of households in three localities of Sheikan, Umrawaba and Elrahad in the North Kordofan State. Data for this study was primarily from farm household surveys conducted in seven seasons (2006/2007 to 2014/2015) in three localities of Sheikan, ElRahad and UmRawaba in North Kordofan State. A random sample of 794 households was randomly drawn from different villages in the study area. Multi-stage random approach was adopted. Treatment effect regression was used to assess the impact of adoption of improved varieties in the study area. Analysis was completed using STATA12 and SPSS22 software packages to draw results and test hypotheses.

Objectives of the study
The overall objective of this study is to measure the impacts of adoption improved varieties on the yields of millet and household income and. The study also aims to achieve the following specific

Treatment Effects Regression
A treatment effect is the average causal effect of a binary (0 -1) The Gain from treatment is For a particular unit I, the gain treatment is If we could observe these gains for a random sample, the problem would be easy: just average the gain across the random sample. The key problem with this model is that for each unit i, only one of Yi (0) and Yi (1) is observed and in effect, there is a missing data problem. It assumes a random sample of units from the population, but we do not observe both outcomes.
In the treatment effects regression model, there are two parameters of primary interest: a) The average treatment effect (ATE) which is the expected gain for a randomly selected unit from the population.
b) The average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) is the average gain for those who actually were treated: Curr

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With heterogeneous treatment effects -that is, when Yi (1) -Yi (0) is not constant the average treatment effect and the average treatment effect on the treated can be very different.
Occasionally it is helpful to define average treatment effects in a sample, for example, The key assumptions of the treatment effects regression are: a) Confoundedness; rather than assume random assignment for each unit i a random vector representing the population distribution of covariates Xi is drawn. The strongest form of confoundedness is conditional on X, the counterfactual outcomes are independent of W. For units in the subpopulation defined by X = x, assignment of treatments is randomized.

b)
Overlap: for all x in the support X of X, In other words, each unit in the defined population has some chance of being treated and some chance of not being treated.
The probability of treatment as a function of x is known as the propensity score

Varietal Characteristics
The farmers state that the improved varieties of millet has better characters than the local varieties, except for the characters taste, color and price Table 4.

Income
The treatment effects regression was used to assess the impacts of using improved varieties of millet on farm income, using  (Table 5).    Table 6.