DETERMINANTS OF SMALL-SCALE IRRIGATION USE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION ON HOUSEHOLD INCOME: THE CASE OF FENTALE DISTRICT, EAST SHEWA ZONE, OROMIA REGION, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess determinants of Small-Scale Irrigation Practices and its contribution on household income in Fentaleworeda. Both primary and secondary data were collected and used in the study. Primary data were collected from 188 household heads, 108 irrigation users and 88 non-users. Three kebeles were stratified into two strata and a systematic sampling method was employed to select the respondents’ households from the population frames of two strata. The descriptive statistics and the binary logistic regression analysis were used for analyzing quantitative data. Secondary data were collected by reviewing different documents. The study results show that the Age of the respondent had a significant positive effect on the use of irrigation water at a 5% significant level. While the livestock holding and Distance from Market had a significant positive effect on the use of irrigation water at a 1% significance level. On the other hand, farm distance from the main irrigation canal had a significant and negative effect on the use of irrigation water at a 1% significance level. As a result, the irrigation user respondents’ households obtained an excess of 2428.5 birrs of mean annual gross income that was obtained by irrigation non-user respondents’ households. The study concluded that small-scale irrigation is one of the viable solutions to increase household income in the study area.Multiple linear regression was used to identify the effect of irrigation on annual gross income of household. The model result indicated that Extension service from DAs 10%, Livestock holding 5% and Non-farm income 1%, Extension service from development agent was significant at 10% significant level of household income.Finally, it is recommended that governmental and non-governmental organization should expand access of small scale irrigation by farm households to solve the distance related problem.