Year: 2025 | Month: December | Volume 12 | Issue 4
Resource-Use Efficiency and Economic Impacts of Micro-Irrigation Adoption among Smallholders in Eastern India
Santosh D.T.*
Mehazabeen
A.
Sairam
M. and Ray
S.
DOI:10.30954/2394-8159.04.2025.2
Abstract:
The necessity of water scarcity, increased demands for irrigation energy and increased production costs make it important to have strategies which improve the efficiency of water and energy use, as well as to increase farm profitability. In this study, the impact of micro-irrigation adoption on resource-use and economy was evaluated in the smallholder crop field of two districts of south Odisha, India—Gajapati and Rayagada and Koraput districts. The survey was conducted by multistages stratified sampling approach on 300 farmers including 150 farmers who adopted micro-irrigation and 150 conventional-irrigation farmers. The descriptive statistics, mean comparison test, and χ² analysis were used to evaluate the socio-economic and institutional characteristics, irrigation and input application, crop productivity, and production costs and returns. Propensity score matching (PSM) was then used to address the observable selection bias and to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT). The micro-irrigation farmers consumed 37.4% less irrigation water, 42.2% less irrigation labour and 33.7% less energy as compared to the conventional-irrigation farmers and produced 22.1% more marketable yield. The physical water productivity rose with 3.86 kg m–3. The novelty of micro-irrigation was that the net return was 72,220 ha–¹ more than conventional irrigation. The benefit–cost ratio was also improved from 1.92 to 2.38 and the economic water productivity was improved from ` 29.01 to ` 68.30 m–³. Following matching, the adoption of irrigation was correlated with 34.8% less use of irrigation water, 18.4% more yield, 39.5% more net return and 114.0% more economic water productivity. The results show that the use of micro-irrigation can enhance the physical resource efficiency and economic performance in smallholder production systems. Improved extension, access to institutional credit and specific investments, together with good water governance, can help to support irrigation transitions in southern Odisha that are economically viable and resource efficient.
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