CONTEXT

On-farm water application in Ethiopia, as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, is dominated by furrow irrigation, which resulted in inefficient water uses and related economic and environmental problems. A recent project introduced two on-farm water management tools, called wetting front detectors and Chameleon sensors, to some farmers in Koga irrigation scheme and facilitated for other farmers in the quaternary canal, who did not receive the technology, to learn from farmers who installed the tools on their plots.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study is to investigate the role of different social ties on information exchanges among farmers when some farmers have the signal on how long to irrigate a field during an irrigation event from on-farm water management tools. The study explored the relative importance of being neighbors, friends, spatial proximity of farms, and project induced pairings.

METHODS

The study used a household survey data from all members of quaternary canals in the project that were in the technology, information, and control groups, as well as detailed network modules on how farmers with plots in the quaternary canal are associated with each other. A fixed effects econometric approach is used to control for time invariant household level and quaternary canal characteristics, while teasing out how the different social ties affect the information flow.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The results show that being in purposeful friendships as indicated by knowing each other's decision on the use of agricultural inputs and its outcome, as well as being spatially proximate as indicated by having farm plots next to each other or usually passing by each other's plots play a significant role in determining whether information-recipient farmers received information from the technology-recipient farmers as expected. Being relatives or neighbors played a minor role to facilitate information exchanges on how long to irrigate. In addition, ad-hoc pairs of farmers between technology-recipient and information-recipient created through the project within the quaternary canal did not play a significant role above and beyond the existing social ties of friendships and spatial proximity.

SIGNIFICANCE

The findings have implications for effective ways of targeting in future scale up of such technologies as it informs that the roll out of such type of technologies and the extension services around it can better help technology diffusion and learning if they use friends and spatial proximates as anchors of information. That is, at times of over-subscription to such on-farm water management tools, information about the technology and the recommended duration of one irrigation turn can diffuse faster if the limited number of tools are distributed in such a way that friends and spatial proximates have access to a tool, rather than distributing the tools based on being neighbors or relatives.

中文翻译：

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亲戚、邻居或朋友：灌溉者之间关于新的农场水资源管理工具的信息交流

语境

与撒哈拉以南非洲大部分地区一样，埃塞俄比亚的农场用水以沟灌为主，这导致用水效率低下以及相关的经济和环境问题。最近的一个项目向 Koga 灌溉计划中的一些农民介绍了两个农场用水管理工具，称为湿前检测器和变色龙传感器，并促进第四纪运河中其他没有获得该技术的农民向安装了该技术的农民学习他们阴谋的工具。

目标

本研究的目的是调查不同社会关系对农民之间信息交流的作用，当一些农民从农场水管理工具获得灌溉活动期间灌溉农田多长时间的信号时。该研究探讨了成为邻居、朋友、农场空间接近度和项目诱导配对的相对重要性。

方法

该研究使用了技术组、信息组和控制组中所有第四系运河成员的住户调查数据，以及关于在第四系运河中拥有土地的农民如何相互关联的详细网络模块。固定效应计量经济学方法用于控制随时间变化的家庭水平和第四纪运河特征，同时梳理不同的社会关系如何影响信息流。

结果和结论

结果表明，通过了解彼此对农业投入物的使用及其结果的决定表明，建立有目的的友谊，以及通过使农场地块彼此相邻或通常经过彼此的地块而在空间上接近，起到了在确定信息接收农民是否按预期从技术接收农民那里收到信息方面发挥了重要作用。作为亲戚或邻居在促进信息交流方面扮演了次要角色，以了解灌溉多长时间。此外，通过第四纪运河内的项目创建的技术接受者和信息接受者之间的特设农民对并没有在现有的友谊和空间接近的社会联系之外发挥重要作用。

意义

这些发现对未来扩大此类技术的有效方法具有影响，因为它表明，如果此类技术的推出和围绕它的扩展服务可以更好地帮助技术传播和学习，如果他们使用朋友和空间邻近作为锚点的信息。也就是说，在过度使用此类农场水资源管理工具时，如果有限数量的工具以朋友和空间邻近的方式分布，则有关技术和建议的灌溉周期的信息可以更快地传播。可以使用工具，而不是根据邻居或亲戚来分发工具。