Assessment of Communal Irrigation Scheme Management System, in the Case of Agarfa Woreda, Bale Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 8, Issue 5, May 2018 392 ISSN 2250-3153 Assessment of Communal Irrigation Scheme Management System, In the case of Agarfa Woreda, Bale Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia Abdissa Abe Neme (M.Sc) Madda Walabu University, Department of Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, Bale Robe, 247, Ethiopia DOI: 10.29322/IJSRP.8.5.2018.p7750 http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.8.5.2018.p7750 Abstract- The study was conducted in Agarfa district, Oromia been practice for long at different farm levels, there is no regional state Ethiopia. A total of 120 farmers were selected in efficient and well-managed irrigation water practice (Mihret and the study area. The x^2and t-test were used to analyse the Ermias , 2014) However, the loss of excessive water (amount of independent dummy and continuous variables respectively. water for irrigation use), lack of awareness of water users, Generally, farmers have showed favorable response in absences of the trial site in locality for irrigation utilization and participating in the community managed irrigation scheme lack of new technology utilization are the great constraints which utilization and management system. Binary logit model was hinder the improvement of rural farmer’s households to increase applied to analyse the factors affecting farmers' participation in income generation and food security (FAO, 2005). communal irrigation management system. The findings of this In order to attain sustainable agricultural production from study indicate that any effort in promoting communal irrigation irrigation, it is important to managed and utilize the resources scheme management system should recognize the socio- like land , water and others in good manner. According to economic, household, institutional, and others factors for better Mihret and Ermias (2014) state that lack of Integration among use of community managed irrigation scheme. Taking the socio-economic, existing local community water management specific characteristics of farmers into account in introducing and practices, institutional, technical and policy weaknesses the promoting community managed irrigation scheme projects may communal irrigation practices become inadequate performances. help policy makers to come up with projects that can win the To mange irrigation in appropriate manner, the water needs to be hearts and minds of the farmers. gauged and properly utilized; According to (Mihret and Ermias , 2014) states that both excessive and inadequate water Index Terms- irrigation, farmers, communal management system applications have negative effects . Gauging the water and matching the plant water requirement and the amount of water applied were observed as an inevitable operation in some finger- I. INTRODUCTION counted highly performing irrigation schemes in the country o feed itself, Ethiopia now a day depends highly on rain-fed (Mihret and Ermias , 2014) T agriculture with limited use of irrigation. High variable and The government has allocated considerable amount of inadequate rainfall , highly frequent floods and droughts, and resources for the promotion and construction of communal lack of water harvest technology place Ethiopia at risk of irrigation scheme structures in the study area. In spite of the drought and chronic food shortages (Darout, 2004) When investments from the government in community managed agricultural production become decrease because of inadequate irrigation scheme utilization, there is no a decision making factor and unfair distribution of rain fed, it is necessary to maximize on the farmers’ side. The end users were not involved in the agricultural production in the next coming decades, effective verifying and evaluation of the performance of the community and efficient irrigation would be needed. The water lost is never managed irrigation scheme utilization as well as to foster available for irrigation in places and during times of water awareness and to reduce economical risk and undesirable scarcity. Irrigation expansion has slowed down drastically over consequences of wide application of the common pool resources. the past two decades and the worldwide emphasis has been on Here the use of common pool resource has to be operationally the rehabilitation and management improvement of existing explained as the decision to use the resources judiciously and schemes. The potential for irrigation is high, but its potential for need based (FDRE 2009). That aspect is not studied in detail. negative impact, if mismanaged, is also apparent. Thus, irrigation Therefore, the overall objective of this study was to assess the expansion is needed with effective and efficient utilization communal irrigation management system in the study area. (Plusqellec, 2009). Consequently, the result of this research would be expected to fill According to Zeleke (2012), community managed irrigation a research gap on community managed scheme management method and water management system consumes much of energy system in Bale Zone. and times to the rural farmers to generate appropriate income and improve rural livelihoods. In Ethiopia, although irrigation has http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.8.5.2018.p7750 www.ijsrp.org International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 8, Issue 5, May 2018 393 ISSN 2250-3153 II. METHODOLOGY kebeles officials, water user association, committee members, 2.1. Description of the Study Area Development Agent's and Woreda irrigation sectors bureau were Agarfa district is one of those 18 districts is found in Bale made discussion. Secondary data were collected from published zone of the Oromia National Regional State. The district has 19 and unpublished documents, Bale Zone and Agarfa district kebeles and also known by community managed irrigation Agricultural and Rural development Bureau, Books, Journals, activities. The District were exists between Latitude 7017'N and Government reports and other relevant information sources. Longitude 39049'E Physically, It was bound by Genale river basin to the South, South East and South West, and Wabe 2.5. The Methods of Data Analysis Shabele river basin in North and North West. In addition, there Descriptive statistics were used to assess the collective are numerous tributaries of the two river basins. (AWARDO, management efficiency in communal irrigation managed system. 2014). The specific methods of data analysis were involved which 2.2. Study Design included the descriptive statistics such as sample mean, sample For the successful accomplishment of the study in three standard deviation and percentage were applied to treat the data Districts, Cross-Sectional Research Design was implemented. from the respondents. In addition, the SPSS software was Therefore, primary data regarding the communal irrigation employed in order to analyze the data collected. The collected scheme management system were collected from the respondents and analyzed data were presented using tables and graphs. The to achieve the study objectives. qualitative data were gathered and analyzed through narrating 2.3. The Sample size and The Sampling Technique and documenting. The inferential statistics like chi-squared and The sampling procedure applied to this study was multi- t-test were used for dummy and continuous variables stage sampling procedure. At the beginning, from the total 18 respectively. They used to determine the relationship, cause- districts of Bale Zone, Agarfa District was purposively selected effect, significant differences between communities managed because, it is one of the areas that manifested with many irrigation users, and dropout to use communal irrigation managed problems concerning communal irrigation management system, system in the study area. which impede the progress of addressing rural farmers in the zone. In the first stage, out of 19 rural kebeles and two urban 2.6. Econometric model kebeles of Agarfa district, 3 kebeles were selected purposively Importance of Econometric Analysis at Community Level based on their irrigation potential, large number of community To analysis the common property resource management at managed irrigation utilization. In the second stage, households individual level can be too difficult because, the common from selected kebeles were stratified in to two strata, community properties resource cannot be owned by an individual at managed irrigation users and non users. In the third the household level rather than at community level. In other way the households from selected as users again stratified in to two strata, collective of individual may be uses the common properties continuously utilizing irrigation system and dropout to use now. resources together but, not allowed to use individually. In the fourth stage, simple random sampling was used to select Therefore, the econometric analysis was employed at community the respondents and the key informants were selected from level. With regard to these concepts, there are at least two kebeles purposively. Finally, the 118 sample size were reasons why collecting survey at community level is appropriate determined using the formula given by Yemane (1967) in a, as compared to individual level. The first reason is that the drawing an adequate sample size from a given population at 95% when small number of social unit was formed; they built capacity confidence level, 0.09 degree of variability and 9% level of to govern the administration and utilization of the common pool precision. resource