Participation in Small-scale Irrigation Vegetable Farming And Its Impact on Farm Household’s Income in Dedo District, Jimma Zone, Oromia Region, South Western Ethiopia.

Abstract

Ethiopian economy is highly dominated by traditional small-scale farming Agriculture. The government has working on irrigation development as the potential available was not utilized intensively. There was no adequate study on the impact of using small-scale irrigation vegetable farming on household income. So, the main objective of this study was to analyze determinants of households’ participation in small-scale irrigation vegetable farming and its impact on household’s income in Dedo District of Jimma zone by using a cross-sectional survey data. Multistage sampling was used to select 250 sample respondents. The primary data were collected using interview schedule, focus group discussion and key informant interview. Various documents were reviewed to collect the secondary data. Descriptive statistics and econometric model like binary logistic regression and Propensity Score Matching were used to analyze data. It was found out that more than 80% of respondents were using traditional way of water diversion and more than 50 percent of respondents were producing only once a time in a year by using irrigation. Potato was the major vegetable crop cultivated by irrigation followed by cabbage and tomato. The mean cultivated land holding was 0.08hac per household and from the available potential, it was estimated that half of it was currently not irrigated. With this regard the status of participation in small-scale irrigation farming was found to be very low in the study area. The study result also indicated; education, family size, credit use and contact with development agent influence participation in small-scale irrigation positively, whereas land size, market distance, farm distance from water and off/non-farm activities have negative influence. The result of propensity score matching also indicated that participation in irrigated vegetable farming had a significant and positive influence on household’s income. It was concluded that irrigated vegetable farming has positive and significant impact on household annual income. Therefore, small-scale irrigation vegetable farming practice is needs to be encouraged and the status of participation in small-scale irrigation must be improved. To do this government and other development actors like NGOs should work more jointly at all level.