the impact of small scale irrigation technology by AGP on farmers‟ livelihood: the case of Yem special woreda, Southern Ethiopia

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.