Enhancing Production of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.): Evidence from Demonstration and Participatory Evaluation of Improved Potatoes in Kellam and West Wollega Zones

Selection of appropriate varieties and quality seed to be planted is the most important steps in boosting agricultural production; failures to do so would result in loss of yield or market acceptability of crops. To ensure this demonstration of improved potato varieties were conducted in West and Kellam Wollega Zones of Oromia national regional state. Different participatory technology evaluations were employed to enable farmers to select the variety/varieties which fit their local conditions based on their own preference. The result obtained indicated that, the production of Belete variety can increase potato production by 56.26% and Gudane can increase potato production by 49.95% in Zones compared to the local practice. More importantly, farmers were enabled to select varieties based on their own criterion, Accordingly, the direct matrix ranking indicated Belete variety as their first choice with the total percentage of 42.32%, Gudane and Local second and third with total percentage of 38.62% and 19.05% respectively. Besides, the profitability analysis indicated higher profit was obtained from Belete variety followed by Gudane. Therefore, based on the agronomic yield under farmers’ management conditions and farmers’ preference to the varieties, extension service providers and other concerned bodies should give attention to increasing the adoption of improved Belete and Gudane varieties in the target areas to boost potato production.