IMPACT OF SMALL SCALE IRRIGATION SCHEME ON RURAL HOUSEHOLD FARM INCOME: A CASE STUDY ON LOKA ABAYA WOREDA, SIDAMA ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA.

Abstract

Small-scale irrigation is one of the most important irrigation systems designed to increasing income of farm households and reducing risks associated with erratic rainfall. The present study is an attempt to examine the impact of small-scale irrigation scheme on income of farm households. A cross sectional data were obtained using a sample of 299 respondents selected through multi-stage random sampling techniques from three Loka Abaya in Woreda Sidama in Southern, Ethiopia in 2017/18 cropping year and secondary data were sourced from the official reports. The primary data were collected from selected 132 irrigation user households and 167 non-user households drawn based on proportion to population size. The impact of small-scale irrigation scheme use on household farm income from maize and tomato production yields was analysed using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method. Twelve explanatory variables were hypothesized that determine households’ probability of participation in small-scale scheme use. The study found that ten variables like gender, age, family size, land size, slope of farm land, access to credit, contact with agricultural development agent, irrigation related training, access to distance of market and livestock ownership significantly influence households’ use of small scale irrigation. The result of PSM analysis indicates that participation in irrigation use has increased annual household farm income by 5439.05 birr for irrigation users than that of non-user households which is significant at 1% level. The sensitive analysis result has indicated that the impact results estimated by this study were insensitive to unobserved selection bias, which concludes that irrigation has positive and significant impact on annual farm income. The study has also found that shortage of improved seed, dependence of surface water, lack of market information, disease and pest, backward agricultural trend, inappropriate use of water considering crop water demand were the main problems encountered in irrigation use in the area. Therefore, governmental and nongovernmental organization should work to provide remedial solution to these problems to improve the livelihood of rural farmer households.