The impact of irrigation schemes on farmers’ income and livelihoods in the Upper East region of Ghana

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June, 2015.
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Abstract
The study evaluated the impact of irrigation schemes on farmers’ income and livelihoods in the Upper East Region of Ghana. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 120 irrigators and 60 non-irrigators. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to analyze the impact of irrigation schemes on farmers’ income with the help of logit to estimate propensity scores. The logit estimates indicate male farmers, large household size, cultivated land size, land acquisition, education, access to credit, access to ready market and access to extension services tend to increase farmers’ participation in irrigation schemes significantly. Contrary, farmers with large farm size are less likely to participate in irrigation scheme. Estimates of average treatment of the treated (ATT) suggest that irrigation schemes is able to impact on farmers’ income by GH₵ 1335.09 (US$ 4272.29) and GH₵ 1353.87 (US$ 4332.38) using the Nearest Neighbor and Kernel based matching algorithms respectively. The Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance (W) result shows that the major constraints confronting irrigation schemes were high cost of inputs, credit, water shortage, land, marketing, labour, and pest and disease. Thus, it can be concluded that irrigation schemes enabled farmers to increase income, crop yield, minimize crop failure and enhance productivity hence poverty reduction. Finally, the study suggested for expansion of irrigated areas (small-scale, medium and large scale schemes), adoption of modern technologies and formulation of farmers’ friendly policy. Also the study recommends that, farm inputs such as chemicals, seeds fertilizer, access to credit and financial assistance should be accessible to farmers as well as improve market access conditions and marketing infrastructure.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology In Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Agricultural Economics, 2015
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