ABSTRACT
To increase agricultural production in sustainability, irrigation is a significant indicator and also affects the socio-economic status of farmers to some extent. Hence, the government has implemented the irrigation facilities in various means to use irrigated water efficiently. This paper aims to study the impact of deep tube well irrigation on the agricultural production reflected to the socio-economic status and the perception of farmers on the government supported scheme. The study area was the initial implementation on deep tube well irrigation scheme in Naypyitaw Union Territory, Myanmar which has the highest percentage of area under tube well irrigation. The study was based on both primary and secondary sources of data. A positive impact of deep tube well irrigation has been seen on the beneficial farmers' income through benefit-cost ratio from cost-benefit analysis. There was also negative effect on concrete canal networks covered in the farming areas, high cost for maintenance and electricity charged for water used, and other social conditions. The implementation of various irrigation schemes should be accompanied with irrigated canal facilities. There has been water availability all-year around from individual shallow tube wells in the study area. Hence, it should improve decision making in the following : policy decisions related to the degree of support provided to irrigated agriculture outweighed rainfed or individual pumped agriculture; investment decisions related to the rehabilitation or expansion of irrigation due to the existence of a dam; the potential to improve the design and management of irrigation including both engineering and institutional factors - departmental and water user group's role in management so as to enhance the contribution from irrigation to sustainable rural livelihoods.
Keywords: deep tube well, beneficial farmers, dry zone, socio-economic status
INTRODUCTION
Myanmar’s agricultural sector is still one of the largest shared components of the country’s GDP as well as the main source of livelihood in rural communities accounting for 70% of the nation’s population. Agriculture is the major source of water utilization in Myanmar as water is very important for cultivation of crops. Therefore, irrigation is essential to safeguard crop production in the dry zone, facing unusual and uneven rainfall patterns in some years. With an abundance of water resources, numerous irrigation facilities have been implemented since the last two decades for irrigation and water supply to crops particularly monsoon and summer paddy.
The development of agriculture relies on irrigation facilities. Availability of irrigation facilities changes the cropping pattern as well as crop production (You et al., 2011). The impact of irrigation transforms the farm characteristics, structure of crop prices, production instability, labor income, and farm income inequality (Peter Timmer, 1988). In Myanmar, continuous supply of surface water is not available. Some farmers have overcome water scarcity due to climate change by using small-scale, individual pumping systems for surface water and groundwater using motorized pumps from shallow tube wells that the depth is ranging from 7.6 meter to 15 meter. However, it can only irrigate for home gardens or small areas of crop production, mainly for vegetables and the fuel cost for pumping is also high. As a government support scheme, groundwater is utilized by deep tube wells with the depth ranged from 48 meter to 76 meter. According to Water Resource Utilization Department under Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, deep tube wells are typically drilled to more than 30 meter in depth and used in formal irrigation schemes, usually with funding or support from international donors. In Tatkon Township, the scheme comprised of 40 tube wells and corresponding power supply infrastructure, pumping, water distribution through a lined and unlined canal networks and drainage systems are fully functional and irrigating 485 ha or around 12 ha per well on average. The scheme is partitioned according to energy transfer as four electric circles (or rings), whereby each ring is served by a specific transformer that services the transmission lines for a particular ring. The water users (farmers) have charged for the electricity generation cost according to the water utilization per unit. The water from deep tube well is used for monsoon paddy and high-value crops in the dry season as supplement soil moisture when growing season precipitation is insufficient.
The percentage of shallow and deep tube well is the highest among other sources of irrigation facilities in Tatkon Township. Farmers in this region, therefore, primarily rely solely on tube wells for irrigating their crops. The main objective of this study is to know the impact of deep tube well irrigation on agricultural production, benefit-cost ratio, cropping patterns and the perception of farmers on the government support scheme in the research villages of the study area. From this study, the suitability or irrigation purposes in other areas of the dry zone could be determined.
METHODOLOGY
Study areas
In Tatkon Township, there is a government support scheme for deep tube wells in three village tracts – Shouk Kon; Kyar Tae Aing; and New Yit. The agricultural plots of these village tracts are located in the upstream of Sin Tae dam. Hence, it is facing insufficient water availability for crop production from networks of canals of this dam due to climate change. In these village tracts, it was a plan to support 40 deep tube wells. The 30 deep tube wells have been implemented since 2013-2014 fiscal year (FY). The farming system of the research villages is lowland paddy farm and upland farm mixture, i.e, the farmers produce the paddies, beans and oilseed crops in lowland and culinary crops and high value crops in the upland. The water supply for lowland is from deep tube wells whereas for upland from shallow tube wells.
Sampling technique and sample size
The three village tracts in Tatkon Township were selected purposively according to the government support scheme for deep tube wells. The beneficial farmers from these village tracts were also selected randomly in Table 1.
Data and Sources
Both primary and secondary data were used for this study. Primary data – both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from beneficial farmers through face-to-face interviews with a structured questionnaire. Qualitative information from farmers and key informants were collected via Focus Group Discussion and Key Informant Interview (FGD &KII) from each village tract. Quantitative data were from information on demographic and socio-economic characteristics, crop production, benefit, cost, etc. Secondary data were collected from published and unpublished reports of township/ district office under Irrigation and Water Utilization Management Department.
Methods of data analysis
Descriptive statistics was used for analyzing the data. Descriptive statistics was applied to the basic characteristics of the sample households to assess the impact on farmer’s socio-economic status before and after the deep tube well supported scheme.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Socioeconomic characteristics of the tube well beneficial farmers
Age and gender
In the study area, the age of the tube owned by well beneficial farmers varied between 31 and 77 years, majority of the tube well beneficial farmers (87%) are male households while the female headed households only comprise of 13%. Overall the mean age of the beneficial farmers in the study area were found to be 52 years.
Experience and education
On average, the respondents had farming experience of 27 years in the study area, while 55% of the farmers have primary education, 23 % of the farmers have secondary education and 12% farmers have high school education and other 10% graduated. The respondents also had an irrigated agricultural experience through tube wells of 5 years in the study area. But, 65% of the sample beneficial farmers had access to tube well water while 35% did not have access yet due to lack of concrete line canals in their fields.
Farmland ownership before and after tube well support scheme
According to Table 2, the landholding size was not totally changed before and after tube well support scheme. The average size of landholding was 1.42 ha in paddy farm and 1.36 ha in upland farm before tube well support scheme and the landholding size varied from 0.4 to 5.66 ha in paddy farm before and after tube well support scheme. The average size of landholding was 1.48 ha and 1.42 ha in paddy farm and upland farm respectively after tube well support scheme and the landholding size varied from 0.20 to 4.45 ha in upland farm before tube well support scheme and from 0.20 to 4.85 ha in upland farm after tube well support scheme.
Major cultivated crops by beneficial farmers
According to the results of survey data in Table 3, the beneficial farmers cultivated the crops that were the majority before the tube well - monsoon paddy (94%), green gram (59%), chickpea (10%) and sweet corn (36%). After tube well, in addition to sunflower, there were no changes in major cultivated crops compared with before. Green gram cultivation was increased from 59% to 75%; chickpea was decreased from 10% to 4%. In current condition, there has been subsidy for oilseed crop production for local oil sufficiency and hence sunflower production has been implemented with the supplementary water for each production stage.
Potential crop after deep tube well support scheme
From beneficial farmers' responses (Table 4), there have been 9 types of potential crops with the water availability throughout the year. These are vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant) (33%), sunflower (23%), green gram (13%), monsoon paddy (12%), sweet corn (12%), chickpea (7%), sesame (4%), chili (4%) and groundnut (3%). Most of the farmers in the study village tracts grew vegetables with the groundwater of individual shallow tube well and plot-by-plot irrigation from deep tube well.
Benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of major crops
The BCR of the major cultivated crops are shown in Table 5. Before tube well, the crop production was high if the climatic condition, especially rainfall, in the growing season was favorable. The return was not stable and even faced losses. The farmers had a chance to get high returns once after three years. After tube well, there has been more returns covered by the total cost of production. In comparison of the BCR before and after tube well support scheme, all of the major crops had higher returns according to the respective crop's BCR.
Cropping pattern
Paddy is the major crop in lowland before and after the government support scheme for deep tube well. Before tube well project, the farmers can only grow the paddy in monsoon season under uncertain condition. If the climate was favorable for crop production, green gram was produced after paddy as sequential cropping. After the project, the monsoon paddy was grown with secured yield as the supplementary water can be irrigated whenever the paddy needs. Then, green gram was also produced with existing soil moisture at low cost of production. After that, the farmers grew sweet corn and hence it was three sequential cropping causing high in cropping intensity. Generally, the study village tracts where two crops per annum are growing mainly paddy and beans before the project while three crops per annum are growing with other types of crops apart from monsoon paddy. In upland farms, the crops such as green gram, sweet corn and cabbage are mostly grown by using groundwater and motorized pumps from individual shallow tube wells.
Farmers of lowland and upland farms which have a combination farming system grew green gram, sweet corn, chili, eggplant simultaneously on their upland farm at the early monsoon season. Then they grew sweet corn again. In winter, they grew cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli. On the other hand, the farmers produced green gram on their lowlands at the early monsoon season which is followed by monsoon paddy and the cabbage or sweet corn is at the later parts of the year. Therefore, the farmers of this type of combination farming system cultivated 3-5 types of crops – sweet corn, chili, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, green gram – based on monsoon paddy annually.
Beneficial farmer's perception on deep tube well support scheme
According to the perception of beneficial farmers through FGD, there was both positive and negative impact by deep tube well support scheme. In terms of positive impact, time and cost saving for irrigation; high yield due to irrigation from deep tube well; low in unemployment rate in the village tracts by job creation for farming and causal labors, transporter and middlemen around the year caused the satisfaction by beneficial farmers. The negative perception from beneficial farmers are as follows: there was no access to water from deep tube well on the beneficial sown area due to lack of the concrete canal network to cover; the beneficial farmers were charged with high maintenance cost and electricity cost because some deep tube well did not cover on all the farms of beneficial farmers by improper canal network; the community public has to dug the shallow well deeper for home consumption after the deep tube well scheme because of groundwater depletion by sustained groundwater pumping; the leader of water user group was busy for marking the unit for water used by each of beneficial farmers; the beneficial farmers who has to grow the paddy due to deep tube well water availability did not cultivate the cash crops that give more return because the farms as lowland are adaptable for growing rice.
CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATION
This study reveals that tube well irrigation is one of the key factors for the crop diversification and improvement of cultivation in Tatkon Township as there is the uneven pattern of rainfall. The benefit-cost ratio from the cost-benefit analysis of deep tube well irrigation exhibits a good economic impact on beneficial farmers for major crops: monsoon paddy, green gram, chickpea, sweet corn and sunflower. Therefore, deep tube well irrigation system is important for the enhancement of the quality of life of rural farmers and reduce their intra, internal and external migration problems. Multi-dimensional policies are required under technology adoption and resource conservation objectives because deep tube wells perform only to increase access to irrigation/supplementary water but do not improve irrigation efficiency as sprinkler or drip irrigation technologies do. The implementation of various irrigation schemes should be accompanied with irrigated canal facilities by proper monitoring and timely funding from the government. Despite the implementation of deep tube well irrigation schemes, excessive pumping lowers the groundwater level causing a downward spiral in which restoring the aquifer becomes harder and harder. It also suggests that farmers should improve irrigation efficiency and switch less water-intensive crops in areas where groundwater depletion is severe. There is a lack of a comprehensive law covering the water resources management. Hence, there is an urgent need for a policy on water resource management to be implemented to ensure that development takes place with proper guidance from the law. The study areas have been given access to water from individual’s shallow tube well by pumping before the deep tube well supported scheme. Hence, it should improve the decision making in the following areas: policy decisions related to the degree of support provided to irrigated agriculture outweighed rainfed or individual pumped agriculture; investment decisions related to the rehabilitation or expansion of irrigation due to the existence of a dam; the potential to improve the design and management of irrigation including both engineering and institutional factors - departmental and water user group's role in management so as to enhance the contribution from irrigation to rural livelihoods.
REFERENCE
Peter Timmer, C. (1988). Chapter 8 The agricultural transformation. Handbook of Development Economics, 1, 275–331.
You, L., Ringler, C., Wood-Sichra, U., Robertson, R., Wood, S., Zhu, T., Nelson, G., Guo, Z., & Sun, Y. (2011). What is the irrigation potential for Africa? A combined biophysical and socioeconomic approach. Food Policy, 36(6), 770–782.
Contribution of Deep Tube Well Irrigation Scheme to Sustaining Rural Farmer Livelihood of Tatkon Township, Naypyitaw Union Territory, Myanmar
ABSTRACT
To increase agricultural production in sustainability, irrigation is a significant indicator and also affects the socio-economic status of farmers to some extent. Hence, the government has implemented the irrigation facilities in various means to use irrigated water efficiently. This paper aims to study the impact of deep tube well irrigation on the agricultural production reflected to the socio-economic status and the perception of farmers on the government supported scheme. The study area was the initial implementation on deep tube well irrigation scheme in Naypyitaw Union Territory, Myanmar which has the highest percentage of area under tube well irrigation. The study was based on both primary and secondary sources of data. A positive impact of deep tube well irrigation has been seen on the beneficial farmers' income through benefit-cost ratio from cost-benefit analysis. There was also negative effect on concrete canal networks covered in the farming areas, high cost for maintenance and electricity charged for water used, and other social conditions. The implementation of various irrigation schemes should be accompanied with irrigated canal facilities. There has been water availability all-year around from individual shallow tube wells in the study area. Hence, it should improve decision making in the following : policy decisions related to the degree of support provided to irrigated agriculture outweighed rainfed or individual pumped agriculture; investment decisions related to the rehabilitation or expansion of irrigation due to the existence of a dam; the potential to improve the design and management of irrigation including both engineering and institutional factors - departmental and water user group's role in management so as to enhance the contribution from irrigation to sustainable rural livelihoods.
Keywords: deep tube well, beneficial farmers, dry zone, socio-economic status
INTRODUCTION
Myanmar’s agricultural sector is still one of the largest shared components of the country’s GDP as well as the main source of livelihood in rural communities accounting for 70% of the nation’s population. Agriculture is the major source of water utilization in Myanmar as water is very important for cultivation of crops. Therefore, irrigation is essential to safeguard crop production in the dry zone, facing unusual and uneven rainfall patterns in some years. With an abundance of water resources, numerous irrigation facilities have been implemented since the last two decades for irrigation and water supply to crops particularly monsoon and summer paddy.
The development of agriculture relies on irrigation facilities. Availability of irrigation facilities changes the cropping pattern as well as crop production (You et al., 2011). The impact of irrigation transforms the farm characteristics, structure of crop prices, production instability, labor income, and farm income inequality (Peter Timmer, 1988). In Myanmar, continuous supply of surface water is not available. Some farmers have overcome water scarcity due to climate change by using small-scale, individual pumping systems for surface water and groundwater using motorized pumps from shallow tube wells that the depth is ranging from 7.6 meter to 15 meter. However, it can only irrigate for home gardens or small areas of crop production, mainly for vegetables and the fuel cost for pumping is also high. As a government support scheme, groundwater is utilized by deep tube wells with the depth ranged from 48 meter to 76 meter. According to Water Resource Utilization Department under Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, deep tube wells are typically drilled to more than 30 meter in depth and used in formal irrigation schemes, usually with funding or support from international donors. In Tatkon Township, the scheme comprised of 40 tube wells and corresponding power supply infrastructure, pumping, water distribution through a lined and unlined canal networks and drainage systems are fully functional and irrigating 485 ha or around 12 ha per well on average. The scheme is partitioned according to energy transfer as four electric circles (or rings), whereby each ring is served by a specific transformer that services the transmission lines for a particular ring. The water users (farmers) have charged for the electricity generation cost according to the water utilization per unit. The water from deep tube well is used for monsoon paddy and high-value crops in the dry season as supplement soil moisture when growing season precipitation is insufficient.
The percentage of shallow and deep tube well is the highest among other sources of irrigation facilities in Tatkon Township. Farmers in this region, therefore, primarily rely solely on tube wells for irrigating their crops. The main objective of this study is to know the impact of deep tube well irrigation on agricultural production, benefit-cost ratio, cropping patterns and the perception of farmers on the government support scheme in the research villages of the study area. From this study, the suitability or irrigation purposes in other areas of the dry zone could be determined.
METHODOLOGY
Study areas
In Tatkon Township, there is a government support scheme for deep tube wells in three village tracts – Shouk Kon; Kyar Tae Aing; and New Yit. The agricultural plots of these village tracts are located in the upstream of Sin Tae dam. Hence, it is facing insufficient water availability for crop production from networks of canals of this dam due to climate change. In these village tracts, it was a plan to support 40 deep tube wells. The 30 deep tube wells have been implemented since 2013-2014 fiscal year (FY). The farming system of the research villages is lowland paddy farm and upland farm mixture, i.e, the farmers produce the paddies, beans and oilseed crops in lowland and culinary crops and high value crops in the upland. The water supply for lowland is from deep tube wells whereas for upland from shallow tube wells.
Sampling technique and sample size
The three village tracts in Tatkon Township were selected purposively according to the government support scheme for deep tube wells. The beneficial farmers from these village tracts were also selected randomly in Table 1.
Data and Sources
Both primary and secondary data were used for this study. Primary data – both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from beneficial farmers through face-to-face interviews with a structured questionnaire. Qualitative information from farmers and key informants were collected via Focus Group Discussion and Key Informant Interview (FGD &KII) from each village tract. Quantitative data were from information on demographic and socio-economic characteristics, crop production, benefit, cost, etc. Secondary data were collected from published and unpublished reports of township/ district office under Irrigation and Water Utilization Management Department.
Methods of data analysis
Descriptive statistics was used for analyzing the data. Descriptive statistics was applied to the basic characteristics of the sample households to assess the impact on farmer’s socio-economic status before and after the deep tube well supported scheme.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Socioeconomic characteristics of the tube well beneficial farmers
Age and gender
In the study area, the age of the tube owned by well beneficial farmers varied between 31 and 77 years, majority of the tube well beneficial farmers (87%) are male households while the female headed households only comprise of 13%. Overall the mean age of the beneficial farmers in the study area were found to be 52 years.
Experience and education
On average, the respondents had farming experience of 27 years in the study area, while 55% of the farmers have primary education, 23 % of the farmers have secondary education and 12% farmers have high school education and other 10% graduated. The respondents also had an irrigated agricultural experience through tube wells of 5 years in the study area. But, 65% of the sample beneficial farmers had access to tube well water while 35% did not have access yet due to lack of concrete line canals in their fields.
Farmland ownership before and after tube well support scheme
According to Table 2, the landholding size was not totally changed before and after tube well support scheme. The average size of landholding was 1.42 ha in paddy farm and 1.36 ha in upland farm before tube well support scheme and the landholding size varied from 0.4 to 5.66 ha in paddy farm before and after tube well support scheme. The average size of landholding was 1.48 ha and 1.42 ha in paddy farm and upland farm respectively after tube well support scheme and the landholding size varied from 0.20 to 4.45 ha in upland farm before tube well support scheme and from 0.20 to 4.85 ha in upland farm after tube well support scheme.
Major cultivated crops by beneficial farmers
According to the results of survey data in Table 3, the beneficial farmers cultivated the crops that were the majority before the tube well - monsoon paddy (94%), green gram (59%), chickpea (10%) and sweet corn (36%). After tube well, in addition to sunflower, there were no changes in major cultivated crops compared with before. Green gram cultivation was increased from 59% to 75%; chickpea was decreased from 10% to 4%. In current condition, there has been subsidy for oilseed crop production for local oil sufficiency and hence sunflower production has been implemented with the supplementary water for each production stage.
Potential crop after deep tube well support scheme
From beneficial farmers' responses (Table 4), there have been 9 types of potential crops with the water availability throughout the year. These are vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant) (33%), sunflower (23%), green gram (13%), monsoon paddy (12%), sweet corn (12%), chickpea (7%), sesame (4%), chili (4%) and groundnut (3%). Most of the farmers in the study village tracts grew vegetables with the groundwater of individual shallow tube well and plot-by-plot irrigation from deep tube well.
Benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of major crops
The BCR of the major cultivated crops are shown in Table 5. Before tube well, the crop production was high if the climatic condition, especially rainfall, in the growing season was favorable. The return was not stable and even faced losses. The farmers had a chance to get high returns once after three years. After tube well, there has been more returns covered by the total cost of production. In comparison of the BCR before and after tube well support scheme, all of the major crops had higher returns according to the respective crop's BCR.
Cropping pattern
Paddy is the major crop in lowland before and after the government support scheme for deep tube well. Before tube well project, the farmers can only grow the paddy in monsoon season under uncertain condition. If the climate was favorable for crop production, green gram was produced after paddy as sequential cropping. After the project, the monsoon paddy was grown with secured yield as the supplementary water can be irrigated whenever the paddy needs. Then, green gram was also produced with existing soil moisture at low cost of production. After that, the farmers grew sweet corn and hence it was three sequential cropping causing high in cropping intensity. Generally, the study village tracts where two crops per annum are growing mainly paddy and beans before the project while three crops per annum are growing with other types of crops apart from monsoon paddy. In upland farms, the crops such as green gram, sweet corn and cabbage are mostly grown by using groundwater and motorized pumps from individual shallow tube wells.
Farmers of lowland and upland farms which have a combination farming system grew green gram, sweet corn, chili, eggplant simultaneously on their upland farm at the early monsoon season. Then they grew sweet corn again. In winter, they grew cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli. On the other hand, the farmers produced green gram on their lowlands at the early monsoon season which is followed by monsoon paddy and the cabbage or sweet corn is at the later parts of the year. Therefore, the farmers of this type of combination farming system cultivated 3-5 types of crops – sweet corn, chili, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant, green gram – based on monsoon paddy annually.
Beneficial farmer's perception on deep tube well support scheme
According to the perception of beneficial farmers through FGD, there was both positive and negative impact by deep tube well support scheme. In terms of positive impact, time and cost saving for irrigation; high yield due to irrigation from deep tube well; low in unemployment rate in the village tracts by job creation for farming and causal labors, transporter and middlemen around the year caused the satisfaction by beneficial farmers. The negative perception from beneficial farmers are as follows: there was no access to water from deep tube well on the beneficial sown area due to lack of the concrete canal network to cover; the beneficial farmers were charged with high maintenance cost and electricity cost because some deep tube well did not cover on all the farms of beneficial farmers by improper canal network; the community public has to dug the shallow well deeper for home consumption after the deep tube well scheme because of groundwater depletion by sustained groundwater pumping; the leader of water user group was busy for marking the unit for water used by each of beneficial farmers; the beneficial farmers who has to grow the paddy due to deep tube well water availability did not cultivate the cash crops that give more return because the farms as lowland are adaptable for growing rice.
CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATION
This study reveals that tube well irrigation is one of the key factors for the crop diversification and improvement of cultivation in Tatkon Township as there is the uneven pattern of rainfall. The benefit-cost ratio from the cost-benefit analysis of deep tube well irrigation exhibits a good economic impact on beneficial farmers for major crops: monsoon paddy, green gram, chickpea, sweet corn and sunflower. Therefore, deep tube well irrigation system is important for the enhancement of the quality of life of rural farmers and reduce their intra, internal and external migration problems. Multi-dimensional policies are required under technology adoption and resource conservation objectives because deep tube wells perform only to increase access to irrigation/supplementary water but do not improve irrigation efficiency as sprinkler or drip irrigation technologies do. The implementation of various irrigation schemes should be accompanied with irrigated canal facilities by proper monitoring and timely funding from the government. Despite the implementation of deep tube well irrigation schemes, excessive pumping lowers the groundwater level causing a downward spiral in which restoring the aquifer becomes harder and harder. It also suggests that farmers should improve irrigation efficiency and switch less water-intensive crops in areas where groundwater depletion is severe. There is a lack of a comprehensive law covering the water resources management. Hence, there is an urgent need for a policy on water resource management to be implemented to ensure that development takes place with proper guidance from the law. The study areas have been given access to water from individual’s shallow tube well by pumping before the deep tube well supported scheme. Hence, it should improve the decision making in the following areas: policy decisions related to the degree of support provided to irrigated agriculture outweighed rainfed or individual pumped agriculture; investment decisions related to the rehabilitation or expansion of irrigation due to the existence of a dam; the potential to improve the design and management of irrigation including both engineering and institutional factors - departmental and water user group's role in management so as to enhance the contribution from irrigation to rural livelihoods.
REFERENCE
Peter Timmer, C. (1988). Chapter 8 The agricultural transformation. Handbook of Development Economics, 1, 275–331.
You, L., Ringler, C., Wood-Sichra, U., Robertson, R., Wood, S., Zhu, T., Nelson, G., Guo, Z., & Sun, Y. (2011). What is the irrigation potential for Africa? A combined biophysical and socioeconomic approach. Food Policy, 36(6), 770–782.