Review on Adoption of Irrigation and Its Impact on Household Livelihood in Ethiopia

Abstract

Agriculture remains the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy. However, in the country, traditional rain fed smallholder farmers dominates the agricultural sector. Thus, Ethiopia has a huge potential of water resources. Nevertheless, there is a vast gap between the irrigated area (only about 10% of the total cultivated land) and irrigation potential in the country. In Ethiopia, still about 97% of food crops are produced by traditional rain-fed agriculture. Thus, the agricultural production activity is highly depends on seasonally rain-fed farming practice. Moreover, the adoption of irrigation and its impact on household livelihood which can be used as the major policy issue have not been well reviewed earlier. Therefore, the objective of this review is to identify the factors affecting the adoption of irrigation, and its impact on household livelihoods. The review indicated that age of household head, sex of household head, total livestock unit, land size, education level, family size, market distance from the farmer’s residence, access to a water source and off farm job participation are significant determinants of adoption of irrigation. Institutional factors like credit service, participation in community leadership, access to agricultural input and extension service are also significant determinant factors. Since the adoption of irrigation practice has significant impact in improving household livelihoods, actions should be taken by the farmer’s, extension agents, stakeholders and generally by the Ethiopian government to make a huge improvement on the irrigation farming in the country.