Examining farm-level perceptions, costs, and benefits of small water harvesting structures in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh

R.P.S. Malik, Meredith Giordano and Vivek Sharma

Agricultural Water Management, 2014, vol. 131, issue C, 204-211

Abstract: A recent initiative in Madhya Pradesh, India to promote privately funded, rainwater harvesting structures on farmers’ own land has shown substantial economic and livelihood benefits. In contrast to the many poorly functioning, community managed rainwater harvesting programs, the individual or decentralized rainwater harvesting structures have led to significant improvements in availability of irrigation water, a revival of the agricultural economy of the region, and substantial increases in farmer incomes and livelihoods. Since 2006, more than 6000 farmers in the state have invested in on-farm ponds. The investments are highly cost effective and farmers are able to recover their initial investment in approximately 3 years. While longer-terms impact studies are needed, this initial assessment suggests that on-farm rainwater harvesting ponds are a promising private small irrigation option in Madhya Pradesh and similar regions in India and elsewhere.

Keywords: Decentralized; India; Investment; Irrigation; Smallholders (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377413001832
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:131:y:2014:i:c:p:204-211

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2013.07.002

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().