Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
2.4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
2.4.1 FARM LEVEL IMPACTS OF DRIP IRRIGATION
In this section, our aim was to observe the significant changes in landholdings, cropped
area, and irrigated area due to the introduction of drip irrigation. For this purpose,
the drip-adopters were compared with control households. The average size of hold-
ing among the drip-adopters was significantly large as compared to control villages.
Since drip method of irrigation involves huge initial investment, large farmers adopt
it widely as compared to small and marginal farmers (Table 1). The details before the
drip adoption were collected based on the recall basis. For the control villages, the ref-
erence period for the preadoption was considered to be 10 years before, that is, 1995.
TABLE 1
General characteristics of sample households in Tamil Nadu, 2007-2008.
General characteristics for
cropping system
Drip villages
Control villages
Before
After
Before
After
Number of workers in the household (No.)
2.7
2.7
1.92
1.92
Farm size (ha)
5.52
5.41
2.23
2.28
Net sown area (ha)
4.51
5.31
1.41
1.35
Gross cropped area (ha)
4.77
6.36
1.46
1.39
Cropping intensity (%)
a
105.57
124.34
103.54
102.96
Net irrigated area (ha)
3.65
4.97
1.27
1.22
Gross irrigated area (ha)
3.84
6.26
1.28
1.22
Irrigation intensity (%)
b
104.88
130.16
100.18
100.00
Percentage of area irrigated by wells to the total
cropped area (%)
82.0
98.03
94.65
94.26
Percentage of area irrigated under drip to gross
cropped area (%)
67.14
—
—
Percentage of area irrigated under drip to gross
irrigated area (%)
68.57
—
—
Notes:
***, ** and * indicate values are significantly different at 1%, 5% and 10% levels from the corresponding
values of control village.
a
Cropping intensity is defined as the ratio of gross cropped area to net sown area and is expressed as a
percentage.
b
Irrigation intensity is the ratio of gross irrigated area to net irrigated area and is expressed as a percentage.
It is argued that drip irrigation increases cropped area and area under irrigation
as it is a viable water-saving technology. Our study confi rms the earlier fi ndings that
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