Access To Irrigation Technology And Technical Efficiency

Despite its recent remarkable economic growth, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world. More than 80 percent of Ethiopians obtain their livelihood from traditional low-productivity agricultural activities. Due to lack of water storage facilities and the erratic nature of rainfalls, most farmers don't have access to water to produce more than one crop per year and hence there are frequent crop failures due to droughts which have made the country one of the highest food insecure nations and receiver of food aid. It is evident that a comprehensive effort is required to increase crop and agricultural production through different intensification and productivity enhancement mechanisms and reduce rural household's food insecurity and poverty. In line with this the Government of Ethiopia and different NGO's have been promoting irrigation technology as a viable option in enhancing farm productivity and efficiency improvements. By integrating field obsei-vations, economic theory, and econometric analysis, this study assess the extent to which access to irrigation technology affects the level of technical efficiency in Gorogutu district of Eastern Ethiopia. The analysis is based on primary household-level data collected from 100 randomly selected households in 20010/11 cropping season. To analyze the effect of the technology on technical efficiency, three different Cobb-Douglas type of Stochastic Production Functions were estimated. More so, to explore different socio- economic and institutional determinants of technical efficiency in the study district, an inefficiency effect model was estimated using the one step procedure.