Abstract:
Irrigation increases productivity by reducing crop losses that is created due to limited water supply, enable cultivation during the lean season, and making crop production possible on lands where rain fed agriculture is infeasible. The geographical location of the Jardega Jarte district is favorable for small-scale irrigation practices but most smallholder farmers are not participating in small-scale irrigation scheme. Possible reasons for non-participation have not been systematically studied in the study area. This study was conducted to identify factors affecting participation decision on small-scale irrigation practices and to estimate the impact of small-scale irrigation scheme on household farm-income. Primary data were obtained directly through interview, Focus Group Discussion, key informant interview and direct personal observation and secondary data source were collected from the published and unpublished documents. Multi-stage purposive and random sampling procedures were applied to select 210 sample households (100 participants and 110 non-participants) from four randomly selected kebeles out of 21 kebeles of the district. Both descriptive statistics and econometric model (Propensity Score Matching) were employed to analyze the data. The result revealed that participation in the small-scale irrigation scheme was significantly and positively affected by educational level of the household head, active labor force, non-farm income and tropical livestock holding, but significantly and negatively affected by distance to the nearest market, and distance from water source. The finding of the study showed that the average income of participants and non-participants were 15394.68birr/year, 10813.83birr/year respectively. This indicates that participation in small-scale irrigation scheme has increased the household’s farm-income by 4580.85birr on average, which is 42.4% higher than that of non-participants. So the study recommends that government and other concerned body of the district and zone should work in expansion and technological development of small-scale irrigation and attempt must made to solve or at least to mitigate the problems faced by smallholder farmers and has to enhance the educational status of the farmers and they to enhance their participation in small-scale irrigation
