Farmers’ perception towards the challenges and determinant factors in the adoption of drip irrigation in the semi-arid areas of Tigray, Ethiopia

Effects of irrigation scheduling and different irrigation methods on onion and water productivity in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

“…Water resources have played a vital role for increased agricultural production especially in the semi-arid areas of northern Ethiopia [7][8][9][10]. However, water is being threatened by various environmental and socioeconomic variabilities [11][12][13][14]. Water scarcity is likely to increase significantly as the requirement for food production and industrial use is at an increasing rate [15].…”

“…In water-stressed regions (e.g., irrigation areas in northern Ethiopia), efficient irrigation water use can meet its objective if the agricultural field is managed properly. However, improper on-farm irrigation management practices could lead to poor water distribution; non-uniform crop growth; waterlogging and aggravates salinity build-ups [10,[14][15][16][17][18]. Literature show that farmers who practice poor water management techniques obtain low-and poor-quality irrigation products such as onion yields with a maximum loss of water and labour forces [15,16,19].…”

“…Several studies [27][28][29][30] showed that among the different irrigation methods, drip and sprinkler irrigation methods increases the yield of onion and water productivity. However, due to lack of technical knowledge, high labour demand, and poor extension services, these irrigation methods are not well adapted and farmers are distrustful to their acceptance [14].…”

“…In northern Ethiopia (Tigray region), most farmers use conventional irrigation practices instead of the drip and sprinkler irrigation systems to irrigate their crops [16,18,31]. As a result, these mechanized irrigation practices (drip irrigation and sprinkler) are limited in the region [10,14,17]. Some attempts have been carried out to introduce and popularized drip irrigation as efficient water-saving technology in the region.…”

“…Some attempts have been carried out to introduce and popularized drip irrigation as efficient water-saving technology in the region. However, it was not successful to be adopted by the farmers due to various reasons as discussed in Gebremeskel et al [14] and Haregeweyn et al [32]. Traditional irrigation practices are known to be less efficient particularly when there is a scarcity of irrigation water [33].…”