Abstract:
With the many variables that influence performance of irrigated agriculture,
including infrastructure design, management, climatic conditions, price and
availability of inputs, · and socioeconomic settings, the task of comparing
performance across systems is formidable. However, if we focus on
commonalties of irrigated agriculture-water, land, finances, and crop
production-it should be possible to see, in a gross sense, how irrigated
agriculture is performing within various settings.
This research was conducted to introduce the concept of evaluating_ the
countries large scale irrigation systems and using the IWMl's minimum set of
indicators for the same purpose. This was done by selecting two irrigation
systems in the Upper Awash Basin . NuraEra state and Wonji estate farm were
selected for their relatively better organization and management, nearness to
weather station and their representative nature of the large scale irrigation
systems in the country.
The necessary primary and secondary <data to calculate the nine indicators
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were collected which are measurement of canal capacity and pump capacity,
and total yields, farm gate prices of irrigaffd crops, area irrigated per crop per
season or per year, crop types, production per season or per year, incomes
generated from water fee and cropping pattern.
The CropWat for windows computer programme (CropWat 4 Windows version
4.3) were used to estimate the crop water requirement and irrigation
requirement of the irrigation schemes.
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The indicators used are o�ut per zapped area, ou;Pu't per co��d area,
output per iri::�1tion diverted, outpuyfer water consumed, relati� water supply ,
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relative irrigat yH :upply, water deliv;f? capaci ty, financjl' self sufficiency and
gross return of"vestment.
The result of the analysis shows that the ratio of RWS, RIS and WDC for
NuraEra are 4 . 8, 6.6 and 1 . 4 , for Wonji estate 1.36, 1.4 and 0.77 respectively.
The four agricultural indicators ; output per cropped area, output per command,
output per irrigation supply and output per water consumed are in the order of
21017 . 44, 23791 . 21, 0.74 and 2.3 for NuraEra and 20074. 97, 13916 . 03, 1 . 4
and 1 . 2 for Wonji, respectively ..
NuraEra spent 0.36 percent of its income in the year of analysis and that of
Wonji is 0 . 17 percent for operation and maintenance of the delivery system.
FSS was 100% for both of the · farms. And gross return on investment was
84. 7% for NuraEra and 76. 8% for Wonj
