Impact of Small-Scale Irrigation on Household Food Security in Central Highlands of Ethiopia: Evidences from Walmara District

Abstract

Small-scale irrigation is among the feasible way in which agricultural production and productivity can be boosted to meet the ever-growing food demand of least developed countries like Ethiopia. But, unlike the potential, the level of utilization is very low. This study was conducted to assess the impact of small-scale irrigation on household food security using the primary data collected from 220 sample households from Walmara district, Finfinnee surrounding Oromia special zone. Descriptive and econometric data analyses were executed. Logistic regression was the model used and propensity score matching (PSM) was the method used to measure the impact of irrigation use on household food security. Using the result of PSM, 118 irrigation non-irrigators were matched with 83 irrigators by discarding 19 observations that are out of the common support. Then, the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) was estimated and the result was 529kcal. Finally, the sensitivity analysis was done and the result showed that the estimated ATT was insensitive to unobserved bias up to 200%. This means family members of irrigation user households on average consume more calories of 529 kcal than irrigation non-users per day and this result is statistically significant. Therefore, agricultural policy interventions giving priority to small-scale irrigation facilities are recommended for their contributions in improving household food security in the study area. Keywords: Impact, Small-scale irrigation, Food security, Calorie, Walmara, PSM DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-3-04 Publication date: February 28 th 2021