Adoption of modern irrigation water management practices by smallholder farmers in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality, Mpumalanga.

Abstract

Water is a scarce natural resource that threatens food security as there is limited water available for agricultural production. This has resulted in the agricultural industry seeking alternative ways for enhancing the efficiency of water utilization while maintaining high production yields. One of the ways that smallholder farmers can adapt to low water availability and quality is by adopting modern irrigation water management practices. While research has been undertaken on the adoption of several agricultural practices, there is limited information on the adoption of modern irrigation water management practices. This study sought to investigate the adoption of modern irrigation water management practices by smallholder farmers in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality. Convenience sampling was employed to collect data from 296 smallholder farmers in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality using structured questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for data analysis. Under descriptive statistics, frequency tables were used to determine the number of smallholder farmers that had adopted modern irrigation water management practices. The results indicate that most of the smallholder farmers used crop based (59.1%) and soil based (79.4%) irrigation scheduling, and the feel method (27.4%) for soil moisture monitoring. Hand hoes (94.3%) and tractors (77%) were used by most smallholder farmers for land levelling; whereas, a majority of the smallholder farmers had not adopted any of the methods or tools for tail-water recovery. Most smallholder farmers used drums (59.1%) and tanks (58.4%) to collect and store rainwater (rainwater harvesting). Inferential statistics was employed to examine the relationship between drivers and the adoption of modern irrigation water management practices using binary logistic regression. The socio-economic drivers: gender, education level, household size, farm size, off-farm employment status, and group membership had a significant influence (p<.05) on the adoption of some of the modern irrigation water management practices. Under socio-psychological drivers, intention, attitude, personal efficacy, and social capital had a significant influence on the adoption of at least one of the modern irrigation water management practices. Several constraints hindered smallholder farmers from adopting modern irrigation water management practices. The constraints included inadequate extension services, lack of information, lack of financial capital, farm distance from adopters and training programmes, as well as lack of technical expertise. Priority should be given to the training and motivation of extension officers to disseminate modern irrigation water management practices to smallholder farmers. More extension officers should be hired by the Department of Agriculture to meet the demand from smallholder farmers for regular visits. The Department of Agriculture should also fund campaigns that raise awareness on the adoption of modern irrigation water management practices to smallholder farmers. Policymakers should implement policies that allow smallholder farmers to gain access to financial capital to encourage them to adopt modern irrigation water management practices. Other sampling methods such as random sampling should be used to get a general representation of the population of smallholder farmers. Questionnaires should be translated to participants’ native language for better understanding of survey questions.