Irrigation & Drainage Systems Engineering

Indigenous Knowledge Assessment on Irrigation Water Management Practices at Jimma Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Hewan Tadesse Kebede*, Minda Taddesse Bedane, Etefa Tilahun Ashine and Addisu Asefa Mengesha

This study was aimed to investigate farmers’ current irrigation water management practice and their technical performance. The study used reconnaissance survey and observations were carried out with each Woreda Bureau of Agriculture to obtain overview of different irrigation schemes and irrigation practice conditions. The collected qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed using appropriated statistical method IBM SPSS version 26. The total number of respondents was 122 which were selected based on local conditions from seven (7) woreda irrigation schemes of Jimma zone. The study result showed that farmers have developed several indigenous knowledge of irrigation water management practice. Based on their knowledge, 73.77% of farmers use furrow irrigation method; 3.28% of them used flood irrigation; 5.74% irrigated their farm with water can and farmers use soil moisture method and crop leaf wilt techniques to irrigate their crop. The farmers apply irrigation water at morning and night time, 89.34% respondents’ uses optimum/medium amount of water to irrigate by their own traditional ways even with the furrow irrigation methods. In addition to that, 95.9% of the farmers of these different areas were replayed the problems of high amount of water for the crops and soil of the irrigation field. Therefore, good management of irrigation water controlled the crop as well as the soil from different outbreak of diseases and soil erosion respectively. Finally, to make the indigenous knowledge more actual farmers should be assisted either by governmental or other non-governmental organizations providing improved agricultural technologies and better access.