Abstract:
This study investigated the impact of small-scale irrigation technology by
agricultural growth program on farmers’ livelihood in Yem special woreda. For
quantitative analysis, both adopter and non-adopter respondents were drawn and
cross-sectional survey data was collected from 343 households of which 115 of them
were adopters and the remaining 228 were non-adopters. Qualitative and
quantitative data from primary and secondary sources were collected. The statistical
model distinctively, binary logist model with propensity score matching methods was
used to evaluate the impact of small-scale irrigation technology on smallholder
farmers’ livelihood. The binary logit result revealed that family size; livestock
holding (TLU), age of the household head, farm income, non-farm income, access to
irrigable land and access to extension are significant variables affecting the adoption
of small scale irrigation technology. The PSM method was checked for covariate
balancing with a standardized bias, t-ratio, and joint significance level tests.
Furthermore, sensitivity analysis of the estimated adoption effect to unobserved
selection bias was checked using the Rosenbaum bounds procedure. The small scale
irrigation technology has a significantly positive impact on adopter households’
livelihood. The finding indicates that the adoption of the technology had increased
the total income, and total consumption by about 31907.5975, and 11792.0608 birrs
per year respectively, which is significant at a 1% probability level on average
compared to the non-adopters. What about the impact based on the findings, the
study suggests that strengthening the promotion of small scale irrigation technology
adoption have a crucial role in improving the livelihood of households in the study
area. In doing so, managing the possible influencing factors that affect the adoption
of the technology should be a prerequisite.
