Determinants of Adopting and Accessing Benefits of Water Saving Technologies: A Study of Public Tube Wells with MI Systems in North Gujarat

Abstract

The state of Gujarat in western India falls mostly in arid and/or semi-arid regions, where half of the rural households depend on agriculture. The relatively low rainfall regions in the state receive rainfall for about 15–20 days during the monsoon with high inter-annual variation. Groundwater irrigation was promoted on a large scale to mitigate the impacts of droughts. Intensive use of groundwater had resulted in its depletion and contamination. To address the worsening groundwater problem, the state government has been promoting micro-irrigation systems (MIS) among the farmers in recent years, through the Gujarat Green Revolution Company (GGRC) Limited, which acts as a nodal agency, using capital subsidy in the range of 50–75 %. There are not many studies that investigate the role of subsidy in enhancing the rate of adoption of MIS. The ‘seasonality’ dimension in the pattern of adoption and use of MIS is also an important factor that determines the access to the benefits of micro-irrigation, which needs to be investigated. This chapter tries to address this by studying: (i) the influence of subsidy in enhancing the MIS adoption rate in the recent years; and (ii) the effects of seasonality and cropping pattern on accessing the benefits from MIS, using an empirical study in Banaskantha district of north Gujarat. The study covered 122 public tubewells with MIS, and 355 farmers randomly selected as sample. The results suggest that: (a) subsidy significantly increased adoption of MIS in recent years; and (b) the environmental and socio-economic benefits of MIS adoption was largely confined to certain specific crops and the seasons. From a policy perspective, this analysis could help in identifying and promoting specific crops/cropping patterns that can produce better outcomes of investments.

Appendices

Appendix 8.1

Distribution of public tubewells with MIS in Gujarat (up to 2012–13)

District name	Tube wells (No.)	(%) share	Farmers (No.)	(%) share	Total area (ha)	Avg. no of farmers per tubewell	Area (ha) per tubewell	Avg. farm size (ha)
1. Banaskantha	143	57.2	650	47.6	642.55	4.55	4.49	1.28
2. Gandhinagar	24	9.6	131	9.6	122.99	5.46	5.12	1.19
3. Mehsana	32	12.8	244	17.9	214.43	7.63	6.70	1.11
4. Patan	42	16.8	285	20.9	204.02	6.79	4.86	0.91
5. Sabarkantha	9	3.6	55	4.0	87.15	6.11	9.68	1.76
Total	250	100	1365	100.0	1271.14	5.46	5.08	1.20

1. Source Adopted from Viswanathan and Bahinipati (2015)

Appendix 8.2

Collinearity test for independent variables

Variable	VIF	1/VIF
Age of household head (HH)	1.10	0.91
Years of schooling of HH	1.02	0.98
Ownership of land (in ha)	1.41	0.71
Share of land under MIS	1.42	0.71
Area under MIS during kharif	1.29	0.77
Area under MIS during rabi	1.27	0.79
Area under MIS during summer	1.17	0.86
Years completed of MIS adopted	1.21	0.82
Number of farmers in a tubewell	1.63	0.61
Ln (depth of tubewell)	1.45	0.69
Deepened in the last five years	1.12	0.89
Horsepower of pump	2.09	0.48
Share of cereals and pulses	1.99	0.50
Share of cotton and oil crops	2.54	0.39
Share of vegetables	2.00	0.51
Mean VIF	1.51

1. Source Computed from primary data

Appendix 8.3

Descriptive statistics of the variables

S. No.	Variables	Mean	SD	Min	Max	Description
Dependent variables
1	Yield increase	0.83	0.38	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
2	Saving water	0.88	0.33	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
3	Saving energy	0.63	0.48	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
4	Reduce labour use	0.73	0.44	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
5	Reduce use of fertilizer and pesticide	0.48	0.50	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
6	Reduce pressure on pump and tubewell	0.25	0.43	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
Independent variables
7	Age of household head (HH)	48.91	13.12	21	85	Numerical
8	Years of schooling of HH	9.03	3.96	1	18	Numerical
9	Ownership of land (in ha)	1.49	1.32	0.2	16.2	Continuous
10	Share of land under MIS	77.99	30.59	6.7	100	Numerical
11	Area under MIS during kharif	0.67	0.47	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
12	Area under MIS during rabi	0.97	0.18	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
13	Area under MIS during summer	0.77	0.42	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
14	Years completed of MIS adopted	3.54	1.15	1	5	Numerical
15	Number of farmers in a tubewell	7.48	5.10	1	27	Numerical
16	Ln (depth of tubewell)	6.29	0.52	4.70	6.91	Numerical
17	Deepened in the last five years	0.83	0.38	0	1	Binary (Yes, No)
18	Horsepower of pump	44.18	17.52	10	85	Numerical
19	Share of cereals and pulses	38.26	22.16	0	100	Numerical
20	Share of cotton and oil crops	32.12	24.10	0	100	Numerical
21	Share of vegetables	17.94	18.39	0	87.5	Numerical

1. Source Computed from primary data (n = 355)

Appendix 8.4

Test for omitted variable bias and specification error

Dependent variable	Ramsey test for omitted variable bias (H0: model has no omitted variables)		Specification error test
	F (3, 336)	Prob. > F	Coefficient of $\hat{Y}^{2}$	P value
Yield increase	1.38	0.248	−0.390 (0.524)	0.456
Saving water	0.66	0.579	−0.625 (0.970)	0.520
Saving energy	0.86	0.464	−0.116 (1.160)	0.921
Reduce labour use	0.23	0.874	−0.058 (0.871)	0.947
Reduce use of fertilizer and pesticide	0.47	0.704	0.457 (0.498)	0.359
Reduce pressure on pump and tubewell	0.10	0.959	0.190 (1.443)	0.895

1. Source Computed from primary data