Economics of irrigated crops in Kinyope and Kitere irrigation schemes in Lindi and Mtwara districts
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Date
2011
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Publisher
Sokoine Universitry of Agriculture
Abstract
Governments in many developing countries including Tanzania are promoting irrigation as
a response to food insecurity. A current initiative in Tanzania for instance, is to scale up
annual paddy irrigation production to 2 million tones in 2018 from the present 8 x 10 5
tones. Studies conducted in Ruvuma and Mbeya regions by the World Bank (WB) and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) shows improvement in irrigation
efficiency and crop yield. The question whether these research findings hold true for
Kinyope and Kitere irrigation schemes or profitability of these two schemes had also
increased, is the motivation behind this study. The main objective is to investigate the
economic performance of Kinyope and Kitere irrigation schemes found in Lindi and
Mtwara districts. Farm Enterprise Budget analysis was employed to determine the
profitability of major crops grown in the schemes. Residual Imputation Method has been
used to evaluate economic value of irrigation water. To capture the effects of institutional
and technical factors on paddy yields in the schemes, multiple regression model has been
estimated. The results show that the average profitability realised is Tshs 1 044 207/ha.
Moreover the results show that the average value of irrigated water found to be 14 Tshs/m 3
and that the estimated average water productivity for paddy is 0.04 kg/m 3 . Regression
analysis results revealed that at P<0.05 paddy yield is positively influenced by cultivated
plot size, capital invested, irrigation water availability and credits accessibility to the
farmers in the irrigation schemes. From these findings it is concluded that economic
performance of Kitere and Kinyope irrigation schemes is good though relatively lower as
found by WB and IFAD in Mbeya and Ruvuma. It is therefore recommended that
stakeholders should jointly work together to ensure that irrigation water is available
throughout the year and that farmers are provided with cheap credits for them to expand
farm sizes, purchase inputs and hire labour at a proper time.
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Keywords
Irrigation crops, Kinyope irrigation scheme, Kitere irrigation scheme, Food security, Lindi district, Mtwara district
Citation
Beatus, S. (2011).Economics of irrigated crops in kinyope and Kitere irrigation schemes in Lindi and Mtwara districts .Morogoro;Sokoine Universitry of Agriculture.