Farmers' participation in irrigation management ( a case study of tarawali irrigation scheme, ghermu Lamjung)

Abstract

he natural increase in world population is 84 million per year. In the other hand, agricultural land is decreasing due to urbanization, natural disasters, climatic variations as well as other reasons. 80 - 90% of the required increase in food production will have to be realized on existing cultivated land in coming decades. This shows that there is urgent need of irrigation management. Farmers' participation is one the crucial factors for the sustainable irrigation management. This research is focused in the farmers' participation in Tarawali Irrigation Scheme management, located in remote part (Ghermu VDC) of Lamjung district where almost all the farmers are of gurung community. Interview checklist, observation and interview with key informants were used for the primary data collection. As the total number of households in the Tarawali Irrigation Scheme is 72, census survey was done in all 72 households of this irrigation scheme. It was found that most of the households (46%) have land in between 0.25 ha and less than 0.5 ha. Those farmers who have fewer fields to grow crops grow vegetables in others' field that have more land. They should not give money or crops to the land owner but they just need to put manure in that field. 21 households have not participated in any training conducted in the Tarawali Irrigation Scheme. In contrast, more than 58% of the households have taken trainings twice or more times conducted in this scheme.