Improving of irrigation management: a learning based approach

Abstract

Farmers draw upon a wide range of sources for learning, and change to irrigation management are influenced by the quality of information networks between stakeholders (researcher, extensionist and farmers as part of the agricultural knowledge triangle), and their means of accessing outside information are important adoption factors. As in the case of most occupational groupings, farmers belong to various information networks and have a wide range of abilities and knowledge. However not all farmers learn in the same manner. These factors suggest that to encourage better understanding and implementation of irrigation scheduling practices it is important to focus on how irrigation farmers might learn about these practices. This paper presents the findings of a study that was conducted to identify social, cultural, economic and technological factors, which influence the adoption of irrigation scheduling practices on the farm. The study showed that irrigation farmers use different learning sources and that informal interaction and social networks play an important role in farmer learning.

Keywords: irrigation, management, extensionist, adoption

South African Journal of Agricultural Extension Vol. 34(2) 2005: 151-165