Farmers’ Perception on Irrigation Farming and the Factors Influencing Access to and Size of Irrigable lands in Northern Region, Ghana

Abstract

Aim: The impacts of climate change and variability requires proactive and reactive adaptation. The high reliance of farmers on rainfed agriculture leads to their high vulnerability to climate change. As an agrarian economy, irrigation farming system is an essential proactive and/or reactive strategy for the increasing erratic rainfalls in Northern Ghana. This study analyzed the perceptions of smallholder farmers on irrigation farming and the factors that influence access to and size of irrigable lands among communities in the catchment of two irrigation dams.
 Study Design: The study adopted a multi-stage sampling procedure.
 Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the Northern Region of Ghana. The data for the study was collected in 2014.
 Methodology: Through a multi-stage sampling, a cross-sectional data was collected from 240 smallholder farmers. These included both irrigation farmers and non-irrigation farmers. The data was analyzed through switching regression and descriptive statistics.
 Results: The result revealed that water unavailability is not a major challenge to most irrigation farmers. The farmers engaged in irrigation vegetable farming mostly for cash purpose and also perceived a high demand for vegetables, especially in the dry season. From the farmers perception, group membership, distance to irrigable land, cost of irrigable land, leadership characteristics and nativity significantly influenced access to irrigable lands. From the econometric result, experience, farmer group, credit, extension, labour availability and age had significant influence on irrigation farming while education, experience, extension, sex and labour availability significantly influenced the acreage cultivated by the vegetable farmers.
 Conclusion: The study concluded that, while there is high market potential for irrigated produce, access to and the size of irrigable lands are significantly determined by a mixed of factors. Therefore, while farmers are encouraged to go into irrigation vegetable production, government’s policies such as ‘one village one dam’ should be effectively implemented to realize the needed results.

Pre- and Post-Harvest Practices and Varietal Preferences of Tomato in Ghana

“…Understanding land ownership is critical to agriculture productivity since primary land ownership is positively associated with decisions on land allocation to crops and technology adoption [22,24]. Kudadze, et al [25] maintained that irrigation farming in Ghana is very limited, which was confirmed in this study, where 60% of the farmers did not have access to irrigation. Similar results were reported by van Asselt,et al [4].…”

Exploring Farmers’ Perception and Constraints on the Adoption of Small‐Scale Irrigation in Hulet Eju Enesie District, North‐Western Ethiopia

“…Moreover, key informant interview participants explained that SSI is socially acceptable and applicable to communities without any social, cultural, or religious restrictions. Similar with this result a previous study indicates the social acceptability of irrigation since it does not clash with cultural and religious rules [44]. The adoption of new agricultural practices and technologies is influenced by different social factors, including religious laws, values, norms, taboos, and customs.…”

“…In contrast with this result, the empirical study by Lebeta [27] indicates that lack of access to market and market information had a significant and adverse influence on irrigation adoption by farmers. The other study conducted by Kudaze et al [44], reports irrigation-user farmers practically understand the availability of high-market demand for irrigation products better than the nonuser respondents. Hence, the availability of high market demand is crucial in enhancing the profitability of irrigators and inspiring nonuser households to participate in the irrigation practices.…”

Towards a new generation of climate information systems : information systems and actionable knowledge creation for adaptive decision-making in rice farming systems in Ghana

“…The study adopts an exploratory design (Kumar, 2019;Maxwell, 2012;Kothari, 2004) to gain insights into how information systems make information available and how user interaction with information produces actionable knowledge in rice-farming systems. An exploratory approach is espoused to enable an in-depth understanding of variables in the contextualised study essential for validating scientific conclusions (Jebb et al, 2017;Stebbins, 2001).…”

“…The scheme serves communities within Kumbungu District, with farmers accessing water for irrigation purposes. However, the majority of households still practice rainfed farming given the limited land area for cultivation under irrigation, amongst other reasons (Alhassan, Loomis, Frasier, Davies, & Andales, 2013;Kudadze, Imoru, & Adzawla, 2019;Zakaria, Abujaja, Adam, Nabila, & Mohammed, 2013). Of these, rice farmers, given the crop's copious water requirement, are at a high risk of crop failure, especially in rainfed farming systems.…”