Spatio-temporal Economic Sustainability Convergence in Koga Irrigation and Watershed Project, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

The spatio-temporal economic sustainability convergence of twelve irrigation blocks in the Koga irrigation and watershed project was tested in this study. Data on technical efficiency were used to examine the expected growth and speed of convergence in order to reach the production frontier and achieve similar economic sustainability. The study used inefficiency parameterizations, convergence theory, and scenario development as a methodology on a survey questionnaire that includes household demography, operational, and farm-specific data in a trans-log stochastic frontier model. The efficiency parameterization was used to identify the level of economic sustainability, and the convergence theory and scenario development were used to calculate the expected growth rate of efficiency and the speed of convergence in years. The main findings are that a household at the project level requires 9.42 percent growth to achieve optimum efficiency over ten years, and a farmer requires 15.46 years if the minimum reasonable growth rate of 6 percent per year is assumed. The findings that policymakers appear to be increasingly emphasizing efforts to improve the efficiency of less efficient farmers rather than investing in new technologies and inputs to ensure higher levels of economic sustainability highlight the critical role of efficiency improvement. Over a five-year period, the economic sustainability catch-up effect requires a growth differential of 2.11 - 9.45 percent. Household size, frequency of consultation visits, male household heads, the sharecroppers' mentality, and non-farm income are thought to facilitate convergence at the frontier while fostering experience sharing towards a similar level of sustainability. On various grounds, the expected growth rate and speed of convergence were discovered to be reasonable targets in the study area. The calculated expected growth rate was very close to what other studies confirmed. As a result of the findings, local governments should consider convergence at the frontier as a long-term plan and catch up for short-term goals.