Abstract
Irrigation remains a critical input into farming and, therefore, it remains a proxy for food security and poverty alleviation in developing countries. Despite their role in economic growth and the received investment, irrigation schemes are still underperforming. Among many irrigation schemes, transferring more management responsibilities to farmers proved to be a viable path toward improving performance. However, the large diversity of implementation strategies makes evaluation difficult, while its well-demonstrated benefits have paramount importance to convince reluctant smallholders to take additional roles. In order to address this gap, we analyze the effects of participation on farming outcomes (yield, revenue, net profit) by estimating the treatment effect. We present the case study of a Mubuku small-scale irrigation scheme, Uganda. We provide a framework to construct the Farmers Participation Index while distinguishing farmers into participating and not participating groups. The effects of participation are investigated through econometric methods including nonparametric and semiparametric estimation methods such as a difference in means, a regression adjustment, propensity score matching, and entropy balancing. The analysis reveals a positive and significant treatment effect of participation on farming outcomes. The obtained results endorse the efforts of governmental programs to foster responsibility transfer and the farmers’ role in irrigation management. A strong causal relationship between management and profitability provides incentives for farmers to engage in participation.
Highlights
Exploiting the potential of irrigation is important in import-dependent, food-insecure developing countries, where the majority of the population is employed in agriculture
This paper focuses on a case study of practical implementation of Participatory Irrigation Management
Categorizing farmers based on Farmers Participatory Index (FPI) allows their comparison in terms of farming outcomes
Summary
Exploiting the potential of irrigation is important in import-dependent, food-insecure developing countries, where the majority of the population is employed in agriculture. According to dissimilar conditions of involved institutions, such strategies might be labelled differently: responsibility transfer, participatory irrigation management (PIM), turnover, irrigation management transfer (IMT), etc. Their primary objective is to reduce the role of government in irrigation management and transfer the responsibility to farmers [11]. Management transfer from the government agency to local communities was accelerated by governmental intentions to reduce the pressure on government expenses, to ensure sustainable financing and to tackle rapid deterioration of hydraulic structures [13] This participative approach has rapidly gained recognition. Beyond resource-efficient management, participation strategies line up with many further merits such as improving productivity and durability of irrigation systems, more in-system equity among farmers, and increased farming outcomes, such as yield and income [16]
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