Abstract:
Irrigation increases productivity by reducing crop failure associated with erratic rainfed
agriculture and ensuring smallholder farmers income through improving their production. This
study was conducted to identify factors affecting participation decision on small-scale irrigation
practices and to estimate the impact of small-scale irrigation on smallholder farm income.
Primary data were obtained directly through interview, Focus Group Discussion and key
informant interview. Various documents were reviewed to collect the secondary data. Multi stage sampling procedures were applied to select 246 sample households (114 participants and
132 non-participants) from three randomly selected kebeles from 9 kebeles with irrigation
access out of 22 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, cultivated land holding and livestock
ownership. But significantly and negatively affected by distance to the nearest market and
distance of farm from water source. Average treatment on treated results obtained from the
PSM model showed that the average income of participants and non-participants were
14,495.68 ETB/year and 9,291.83 ETB/year respectively. This indicates that participation in
small-scale irrigation scheme has increased the household’s farm income by 5203.90 ETB on
average, which is higher than that of non-participants. So the study recommends that
government and other concerned body 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 to enhance their participation in small-scale irrigation hence
improve their annual income.
