Impact of irrigation on grain maize productivity in Ethiopia
International Journal of Development Research
Impact of irrigation on grain maize productivity in Ethiopia
Received 19th February, 2021; Received in revised form 10th March, 2021; Accepted 20th April, 2021; Published online 14th May, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Tesfaye Haregewoin. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
One of the sources that contribute to food shortage is poor productivity levels. This study examines the impact of employing irrigation on grain maize productivity using 350 sample farm households in Ethiopia. Propensity score matching technique was employed since it is one of the most common and increasingly utilized standard methods for evaluating impacts using observational data. And the study found that irrigators enjoy a positive and significantly higher productivity, on the average from 42-45% higher, than their counterparts, non-users. Thus, the study recommends that use of irrigation could be an effective strategy to enhance productivity and, thereby, production that contributes a lot to the improvement of the livelihood of grain maize producing farm households.
