Determinants Of Small-Scale Irrigation Utilization By Farm Households: In Liban Jawi Distract, West Shoa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

If successful, irrigation in Ethiopia could represent a cornerstone of the agricultural development of the country, contributing up to ETB 140 billion to the economy and potentially moving up to six million households into food security. However, even if the study area has irrigation potential, many of the households those have access to irrigation scheme did not utilizes at their full potential and still depend on rain-fed. This study focuses on analysing the determinants of small irrigation utilization among farming households. Total samples of 150 farming households were selected through multi-stage random sampling from two kebeles of Liban Jawi district. Sources of data were both the primary and secondary sources. The primary data were collected through Interview schedule, FGD, KIIs and personal observation methods. Quantitative data were analysed by descriptive statistics and binary regression model. Small farm size, irrigation water shortage, lack of working force, high labour cost, Low access to credit, lack of draft power (oxen), Low access to extension service, low access to market and high input cost were the challenges for SSI utilization at the study area. Enable government policy, access to irrigation water, good weather condition, market access for irrigation output and farm land potential of the area was identified as the opportunities of SSI utilization at the study area. The result from binary regression model revealed that the age of household head, education level of household head, access to non/off-farm income source, number of livestock owned, number of oxen owned, and distance from irrigation water source were statistically significant and influence households SSI utilization decision. Finally, it is recommended that the GOs and other responsible bodies should ensure the establishment of more main canals or improve farmers’ accessibility to irrigation water source to increase irrigation utilizatio