BACKGROUND

Under this major project, there are a total of eight sub-projects, six of which are ongoing and two of which are completed. The regional coverage of the project extends from South Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Objectives

• To find out the most promising agricultural water management technologies and practices which can be promoted and scaled up in order to contribute to poverty reduction objective
• Fill the gaps in knowledge on existing agricultural water technologies/practices.
• To assess the adoption pattern, economics and resource conservation (water saving) potential of Agricultural water management technologies, and derive research, development and policy implications.
• To identify key variables influencing agricultural water management technologies uptake and dissemination.
• To analyze poverty outreach or equity implications of the adoption of agricultural water management technologies.
• To strengthen gender balanced public agricultural institutional capacity and foster institutional learning and changes to better support the dissemination, use and impact of market oriented agricultural technologies and information.
• To enhance cross regional transfer of experience and wider dissemination of the technologies.

Methods

Method of data generation

The study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative research methods employed include: focus group interviews, key informant surveys, and literature reviews. These were complemented by structured questionnaire survey. Multistage stratified random sampling was used to select households (fields and farms) for the study. Questionnaires were developed, and pre-tested. The pre-tested questionnaire were administered to the randomly selected sample of farmers either by trained enumerators or an experienced consultant with intimate knowledge of the study areas and proven relevant professional skill. In some cases water measurements were undertaken for selected fields of sub sample of adopting and non-adopting farmers to quantify the water use efficiency of the agricultural water management technologies.

Analytical Methodology

The socioeconomic and demographic profile of adopters, dis-adopters, and non-adopters were summarized and compared using descriptive statistics. Econometrics of qualitative dependent variables such as Logit and Tobit regression models were applied to measure the incidence and intensity of agricultural water management technologies and to identify variables influencing adoption. To evaluate the economics of alternative agricultural water management technologies we used enterprise budgeting, cost benefit and production function analyses. To evaluate the equity impact or poverty outreach of the technologies we employed Indicator Based Poverty Assessment Tool Kit, which is based on .Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

Project leader

Researchers

Major Donors

Project Duration

Location