Abstract:
Irrigation is one of the instruments to overcome the current negative effect climate change on
food production and ensuring household food security. Assessuing the impact of irrigation on
household food security helps to provide informatuion to the development planers by
examining the extent to which a program has caused desired changes on the participants
household well being. This study going to analyze the impact of small-scale irrigation on
household food security as well as identifying factors that affect household irrigation water
use in the study area. A multi- stage random sampling technique was employed to select
sample households. Data was collected from160 household heads and analysis with the help
of various descriptive and econometric techniques. Propensity score matching Probability
model was used to achieve the objective of the study. A logit model was used to analyze the
potential variable affecting household participation in small-scale irrigation. The result
indicates that, participation in small-scale irrigation is positively influenced by education
status of the household head, distance from local market and by frequency of extension
contact. Whereas, negatively influenced by livestock holding of the household, distance from
irrigation water source, household dependency ratio and by non-farm income. The
intervention in small-scale irrigation result a positive and statically significant mean
difference between the two groups in terms of daily calorie intake and annual caloric
consumption expenditure per adult equivalent. Average treatment effect on treated (ATT)
result shows that both the daily calorie intake and annual caloric consumption expenditure
increase approximately by 28 percents or 908.29 and 628.94 ETB respectively because of
participation in irrigation. However, there are factors that hinder households to use irrigation
water in the study area, which needs attention. Therefore looking collective action should be
advisable to improve and sustain the positive impact of irrigation by reducing or solve major
constraints that face agro pastoralist regarding on irrigation water use in the area
