Determinants of Small Holder Rural Farm Households’ Participation in Small Scale Irrigation in Western Ethiopia, in Case of Assosa District in Assosa Zone (Heckman Two-Stage Model)

Adisu Yirdaw

doi:10.7176/jrdm/73-01

Abstract

Increasing technology adoption including irrigation among smallholder farmers has a big potential to uplift living standards of poor through increasing production and consumption pattern. The objective of this study was analyzing determinant of smallholder farmer participation in small scale irrigation and its intensification in western Ethiopia, in case of Assosa district in Assosa Zone. The study used data from 329 respondents from six selected kebeles of Assosa woreda in Assosa zone, through structured questioner. The descriptive statistics and Heckman two stage econometric methods were employed to analyze data collected from sampled household. The significance of coefficient of inverse Mill’s ratio (l) indicates the presence of selection bias and the effectiveness of applying Heckman two stage model. In the first stage of probit regression results of study show that the adoption decision of small scale irrigation use were driven by factors such as sex of the head, education, farm size, attend training at farmer training center, distance to irrigation, credit use, total livestock unit, ethnicity, active labor and development agent advice significantly determine participation in small scale irrigation. In the second stage, the intensification of small scale irrigation use was influenced by family size, credit use, ethnicity of farm household head and lambda. The policies which expand the accessibility of credit service, dissemination of productive agricultural technology information, and creating opportunity of education for farm household has potential to increase the chance of small scale irrigation adoption decision and strengthen the level of adoption among smallholder farmers. Keywords: Assosa, Hechman two stages, Small scale irrigation adoption DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/73-01 Publication date: February 28 th 2021

Highlights

The study of how individuals are able to escape poverty is a central issue of economic development theory
The descriptive statistics result for continuous variable (Table 3, t-value) show that there was no statistically significant difference between small scale irrigation adopter and non-adopter concerning age of head and distance to market center while there was significant difference in land holding and handiness of family labor
IMPLICATION Conclusion A remarkable improvement in agricultural productivity in majority of developing countries in late 1960s resulted from agricultural transformation agenda including of agricultural research, extension services and rural infrastructural development that basically underline the role technology adoption among smallholder’s farmer in increasing production was vital

Summary

Introduction

The study of how individuals are able to escape poverty is a central issue of economic development theory. Of the poor people worldwide (those who consume less than a 1 dollar-a-day), 75 percent work and live in rural areas and projections suggest that over 60 percent will continue to do so up to 2025 (Mendola, 2007). These are good reasons to give emphasis to research on rural poverty reduction, and to redirect attention and expenditure towards agricultural development. More than half of the less developed countries population gets their food from own production The country used this agricultural output as an input for industries so it can stimulate the growth of industrialization. Agriculture is Ethiopia’s most important sector and it is the main stay of economy that contributes about 34.122% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 75% of the employment of the country’s labor force, 70% of export earning and 70% of the supply of industrial raw materials (FAO, 2017)

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