Determinants of Small Holder Rural Farm Households’ Participation in Small Scale Irrigation in Western Ethiopia, in Case of Assosa District in Assosa Zone (Heckman Two-Stage Model)

Abstract

Increasing technology adoption including irrigation among smallholder farmers has a big potential to uplift living standards of poor through increasing production and consumption pattern. The objective of this study was analyzing determinant of smallholder farmer participation in small scale irrigation and its intensification in western Ethiopia, in case of Assosa district in Assosa Zone. The study used data from 329 respondents from six selected kebeles of Assosa woreda in Assosa zone, through structured questioner. The descriptive statistics and Heckman two stage econometric methods were employed to analyze data collected from sampled household. The significance of coefficient of inverse Mill’s ratio (l) indicates the presence of selection bias and the effectiveness of applying Heckman two stage model. In the first stage of probit regression results of study show that the adoption decision of small scale irrigation use were driven by factors such as sex of the head, education, farm size, attend training at farmer training center, distance to irrigation, credit use, total livestock unit, ethnicity, active labor and development agent advice significantly determine participation in small scale irrigation. In the second stage, the intensification of small scale irrigation use was influenced by family size, credit use, ethnicity of farm household head and lambda. The policies which expand the accessibility of credit service, dissemination of productive agricultural technology information, and creating opportunity of education for farm household has potential to increase the chance of small scale irrigation adoption decision and strengthen the level of adoption among smallholder farmers.

Keywords: Assosa, Hechman two stages, Small scale irrigation adoption

DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/73-01

Publication date: February 28^th 2021