Determining Factors Influencing the Adoption of Spate Irrigation in Guguf, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Spate irrigation is the diversion of floods running off from mountainous catchments, diverted by hydraulic structures and applied to low-lying irrigable fields in arid and semi-arid areas to improve farmers' livelihood. Despite its higher potential to support the livelihood of farmers, spate irrigation has received less emphasis. Given this, the study attempted to determine factors affecting farmers' adoption of spate irrigation. The study was carried out in 2018 on 150 households selected using systematic sampling from three irrigation schemes located along the Guguf stream, northern Ethiopia. A questionnaire with 0.82 reliability was employed for the collection of the required data and analyzed using binary logistic regression model. Results revealed that out of the sixteen explanatory variables entered into the binary logit model nine of them were found statistically significant at (p 0.10) to estimate the likelihood of farmers' participation in spate irrigation. These are a distance of plot from diversion head and residence, sex of household head, livestock in the tropical unit, farm size, farm experience, farm ownership, spate water availability and age of the household head. Thus, training, market support and supporting females are required. Keywords: Guguf, spate irrigation, adoption, Weynalem, Waekel, Kusra, Northern Ethiopia DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/64-02 Publication date: May 31 st 2020