Trends of Oat Production Area, Productivity and Utilization Status in Ethiopia

Oat is an important multi-purpose cereal crop cultivated for grain, feed, straw used for human consumption and livestock feed. Oat is ranked as sixth in the world’s cereal production following wheat, maize, rice, barley and sorghum. Therefore, this study is initiated to analyze the trends of; oats production area, productivity and utilization status in Ethiopia. Data of meher season oats area of production (ha), productivity (qt/ha) and utilization (%) were collected from the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia. Trend test was carried out using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall’s trend test packaged in XLstat. This study’s result indicated that oat production showed a non-significant increasing trend. Additionally oats yield qt/ha showed that significant increasing trend. Oat production area showed significant decreasing despite being used as Household Consumption and animal feed showed non-significant decreasing trends.


INTRODUCTION
Oat (Avena sativa L.) is one of the well-adapted and important fodder crops grown in the highlands of Ethiopia, mainly under rain-fed conditions (Amanuel et al., 2019) and in Ethiopia used for human consumption and livestock feed.Oat is an important multi-purpose cereal crops cultivated for grain, feed and straw over more than 9 million hectares globally (FAO, 2011).Gebremedhin et al. (2015) reported that oats grain is the staple diet of human beings in some parts of the central high lands of Ethiopia. Lulseged (1987) also stated that oat is a dual purpose forage crop which can also be used as human food in many parts of the world.According to the Ethiopia Ministry of agriculture and rural development, oats was registered as grass and used as forages (Getnet, 2012).Oats are abundantly grown in the central highlands of Selale and some parts of west Shewa like Meta-Robi and Galessa areas of Dendi woreda, Arsi, Bale and Gojjam.Oat is ranked as sixth in the world's cereal production following wheat, maize, rice, barley and sorghum.The initial aim of oats introduce to the smallholders was for feed production (Fekadu et al., 2018).Oat is forage crop grown at medium to high altitudes (1600-3000m) on heavy soils (vertisols) where temperate grasses and other improved forages are difficult to establish (Negash et al., 2017).Oats were early maturing, palatable, succulent and energy-rich crop and mostly used as silage and is preferred by animals due to its high palatability and softness.Its grain is also a valuable feed for dairy cows, horses, young breeding animals and poultry.Many cultivars of oat have high feed value if cut at its 50 percent flowering stage which is the best time for the crop harvest for better yield and can meet the demand of the rapidly growing livestock industry of Ethiopia (Gebremedhin et al., 2015).
Ethiopia is endowed with diverse agro-ecologies suitable for cereal production.Cereals crop like Oats productions in Ethiopia were under rain fed production system.However, the success of this production system relies more on climate condition.The facts about land use, utilization and number of householder at the national level have potentially imposed limits on the areas sown as a major source of increase in production.This causes inverse relationship between area and production because expansion area which is unsuitable for agriculture and uses.The interconnection of oat production area, productivity and utilization change with areas cover on trends of oat is less understood.The current trends of oat production areas, productivity and utilization have not yet investigated in Ethiopia.Therefore, the objective the study was designed to analysis trend of oat production areas, utilization in Ethiopia.

METHODOLOGY
Data of maher season for oat production area, productivity, utilization status of oat for the period of 2008 to 2020/2021 were collected from Central Statistical Agency (CSA).Trend test were carried out using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall's trend test which is less sensitive to outliers and test for a trend in a time series without specifying whether the trend is linear or nonlinear (Partal and Kahya, 2006;Yenigun et al., 2008;Hadgu et al., 2013).The Mann-Kendall's test statistic is given as: Where S is the Mann-Kendal's test statistics; xi and xj are the sequential data values of the time series in the years i and j (j > i) and N is the length of the time series.A positive S value indicates an increasing trend and a negative value indicates a decreasing trend in the data series.

The sign function is given as
The variance of S, for the situation where there may be ties (i.e., equal values) in the x values for 2008-2020 production years.In the country Yield of Oat Qt/ha showed significant (P=0.000)increasing trend by factor of 0.823 (Qt/ha)/year.However, Oat production area showed significant (P=0.041)decreasing trend by factor of -778.695ha/year.In agreement with this result, (Wasihun and Desu, 2020) indicated that in Ethiopia area of oat production is decease despite yield Qt/ha is increase.Household Consumption showed a non-significant (P=0.087)decreasing trend by factor of-0.186 percent/year.Oat used as animal feed showed a non-significant (P=0.542)decreasing trend by factor of -0.027 percent/year.As CSA show that oat production is distributed only in Oromia, Amhara and SNNP.From One decade ago Oat is abundantly grown in the central highlands of Selale and some parts of west Shewa like Meta-Robi and Galessa areas of Dendi woreda, Arsi, Bale and Gojjam.However, recently due to the expansion of crop cultivation, the area of oat production is decreased and oat used as household consumption and animal feed is decreased while cereal and pulse crop production area is increased and household consumption is more shifted to cereal and pulse crops.But production of oat (Qt/Yrs) and yield (Qt/ha) of oat is increased, this is due to various research result which is related to oat variety development, agronomy and adaption with modern inputs.Generally in Ethiopia due to shortage of land, the attentions of small householders are on cash crops and human feed crops rather than animal feed.
Where, m is the number of tied groups in the data set and ti is the number of data points in the ith tied group.For n larger than 10, Z MK approximates the standard normal distribution (Partal and Kahya, 2006;Yenigun et al., 2008) and computed as follows The presence of a significant trend is evaluated using the Z MK value.In a two-sided test for trend, the null hypothesis Ho should be accepted if at a given level of significance.Z 1-α/2 is the critical value of Z MK from the standard normal table.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Sen's slope value in Tables 1 to 3 indicated that the country-level production of Oats (Qt/yr) showed a nonsignificant (p=0.879)increasing trend by factors of 3313Qt     In the country yield of Oat Qt/ha showed significant (P=0.000)increasing trend by factor of 0.823 (Qt/ha)/ year.However, Oat production area showed significant (P=0.041)decreasing trend by factor of -778.695ha/ year.Household Consumption showed a non-significant (P=0.087)decreasing trend by factor of -0.186 percent/ year.Oat used as animal feed showed a non-significant (P=0.542)decreasing trend by factor of -0.027 percent/ year for 2008-2020 production year.

Table 3 :
Mann-Kendall Trend statistics for Production, Area of Production, Yield, and Household Consumption, Animal Feed for 2008-2020/21.