An analysis of the productivity and technical efficiency of smallholder irrigation in Ethiopia

Godswill Makombe,Seleshi Bekele Awulachew,Mekonnen Ayana,Matshidiso Kanjere,Regassa E Namara,Fitsum Hagos

doi:10.4314/wsa.v43i1.08

Abstract

Agriculture is the mainstay of Ethiopia’s economy, contributing more than 40% to GDP and providing a livelihood to about 80% of the population. Agriculture is dominated by smallholders growing predominantly rainfed cereals, making economic performance dependent on rainfall availability. This study used the stochastic frontier production function to analyse the productivity and technical efficiency of 4 different agricultural production systems in Ethiopia; namely, irrigated seasonal farms on traditional irrigation systems, irrigated seasonal farms on modern communal irrigation systems, rainfed seasonal farms for farmers who have access to irrigation and rainfed seasonal farms for farmers who do not have access to irrigation. Simple random samples of farmers were selected from lists of farmers. The sample of farmers constituted 122 from the traditional irrigated sites, 281 from the modern communal irrigated sites and 350 from the control rainfed sites of farmers without access to irrigation. For those farmers, from both traditional and modern communal irrigation, who also had access to rainfed farms, their rainfed farms were included in the sample of rainfed with access to irrigation. This sample constituted 434 farmers. The marginal productivity of land on modern communal irrigation systems shows that this is the smallholder irrigation option that should be developed by the Government of Ethiopia. However, the marginal productivity of land in the ‘rainfed without access to irrigation’ category is higher than that of the traditional irrigated system. Thus additional developed land should be put under ‘rainfed without access to irrigation’ before it is put under traditional irrigation; otherwise it should be developed into modern communal irrigation. The average technical efficiency for the modern irrigated system was estimated to be about 71%, whereas this was estimated to be 78% for the ‘rainfed without access to irrigation’ system. There are potential gains to be realised in improving efficiency in these two systems.Keywords: Ethiopia, irrigation, productivity, technical efficiency

Highlights

Agriculture is the most significant contributor to Ethiopia’s national economy (World Bank, 2006)
Bogale and Bogale (2005) reached a similar conclusion when they estimated the technical efficiency of traditional irrigated smallholder potato farmers in the Awi zone of Ethiopia to be 97%
Since for the traditional irrigation sample we fail to reject the null hypothesis that γ = 0, yet we reject it for the communal modern irrigation sample, this is further evidence supporting the conclusion reached in the test for pooling that these two samples come from different populations

Summary

Introduction

Agriculture is the most significant contributor to Ethiopia’s national economy (World Bank, 2006). Agricultural production is dominated by smallholders who predominantly grow rainfed cereals on an area of approximately 10 million ha (World Bank, 2006). Irrigation in Ethiopia is classified by management system, namely, traditional, modern communal, modern private and public systems (Werfring, 2004). The management of the smallholder traditional irrigated systems is communal, the diversion weirs are constructed with local materials and are usually washed away every year so that they have to be reconstructed annually. Modern communal irrigation schemes are smallholder systems managed locally but with concrete diversion weirs and sometimes concrete primary canals. Land on the modern private scheme is privately owned and managed.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion