Factors Affecting Women Access to Agricultural Extension Services: Evidence from Poultry Producer Women’s in Northwestern Tigray, Ethiopia

Rural poultry production is an appropriate system for supplying the fast-growing human population with quality food and provides additional income to resource-poor farmers, especially women to improve their livelihoods. The main objective of this study was to identify factors that affect the access of women to poultry extension services in Northwestern, Tigray, Ethiopia. Multistage sampling techniques based on probability proportional to size were used to select districts, tabia (peasant association) and women poultry producers in the Northwestern Tigray. Variables on socio-economic characteristics of women poultry producers, access to information, access to training, access to credit service and times of visit by extension agents were generated from primary data collected from the study area. Data were subjected to logit econometric regression analysis. The result of the logistic regression model estimate revealed that out of the 10 factors, 6 variables were found to have a significant influence on the probability of women’s access to poultry extension service. These variables included household size, age of women, farmland size, information about poultry extension service, number of visits by extension agent and access to poultry production training. The coefficients of access to information about poultry extension service and the number of visits by extension agent were statistically significant at 1% probability level of significance, whereas household size, age of women poultry producers, farmland size and access to poultry production training were statistically significant at 5% probability level of significance.