Impact of cooperation in irrigation water management on technical efficiency and irrigation water efficiency of smallholders in Lebanon -

Abstract

Lebanon is relatively rich in water resources in the Middle East and North Africa. However, in recent years, Lebanon was faced with drastic decrease in crop yield due to shortage of accessible water. Agriculture in Lebanon mostly consists of small and fragmented land farms, which hampers efficient large scale irrigation. Cooperation among farmers has been one way which farmers could hope to increase their overall as well as irrigation efficiencies. The objectives of this study are 1) to measure technical efficiency of farmers, especially smallholders, in Lebanon and identify determinants of their inefficiency using stochastic frontier analysis, 2) to measure irrigation water efficiency and identify factors affecting it, especially, the impact of participation in farmers’ groups and associations, and 3) to draw policy recommendations based on these efficiency estimates. The estimated stochastic frontier production function suggested the prevalence of significant technical inefficiency. The mean estimated technical efficiencies of fruit tree and vegetable farms are 62.93 percent and 60.87 percent, respectively. The mean estimated irrigation water efficiencies of fruit tree and vegetable farms are 15.14 percent and 39.38 percent, respectively. There is therefore ample room for increasing crop yields while maintaining the current input levels. While participation in farmers’ group for irrigation water management does not significantly affect technical inefficiency of fruit tree farms, it significantly reduces the technical inefficiency of vegetable farms and significantly increases irrigation water efficiency of both fruit tree and vegetable farms. For both fruit tree and vegetable farms, the adoption of surface irrigation significantly and greatly increases technical inefficiency and decreases irrigation water efficiency. Smallholders in the region who are members of farmers’ groups also show higher technical efficiency and irrigation efficiency though the size of total irrigated area sig