Impact of Small-scale Irrigation on Farm Income Generation and Food Security Status: The Case of lowland Areas, Oromia, Ethiopia

Beyan Ahmed (), Jafer Mume and Adem Kedir
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Beyan Ahmed: Department of Agricultural Economics, Haramaya University, Ethiopia

International Journal of Economics and Empirical Research (IJEER), 2014, vol. 2, issue 10, 412-419

Abstract: Ethiopia has failed to produce enough food to feed its population and the country has remained as one of the developing countries in the world. Irrigation technology has been identified as one of the most priorities in the strategies of the sustainable agricultural productivity in the country. In an effort to address this problem, the government has given due attention for soil and water conservation in the country. However, definitive and quantitative information regarding irrigation technology and its interactions with farm productivity is lacking. We evaluate the impact of irrigation interventions on income generation and food security status of smallholder farm households in East hararghe lowland areas of Ethiopia using cross sectional data collected from randomly selected 200 sample households during 2011/12 production season. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was employed. The logistic regression estimation of factors affecting participation irrigation technology revealed that educational level of the household head, cultivated area, social status, livestock holding, oxen owned and irrigation distance significantly affected the participation decision of households in irrigation. In matching processes, kernel matching with band width of 0.1 was found to be the best matching algorism. This method was also checked for covariate balancing with a standardized bias, t-test, and joint significance level tests. Findings: The results revealed that households that participate in irrigation practice have got an improvement of 34 percent and 48percent in calorie intake and farm income than those households that were not participated respectively, which shows participation has a significant, positive and robust impact on the outcome variables. Therefore, policy makers and other stockholders should give due attention in irrigation technology.

Keywords: Irrigation; Food Security; Income Generation; Lowland Areas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L66 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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