Estimation of Livestock, Domestic Use and Crop Water Productivities of SG-2000 Water Harvesting Pilot Projects in Ethiopia

Water scarcity in these days is a real threat to food production for millions of people in arid and semiarid areas of developing countries. As water becomes one of the most scarce resources in these poor developing countries, the only option available to get out of poverty is to improve the productivity of water in every sector of production. Currently, in some of water stressed areas of Ethiopia, water harvesting technologies are being introduced in the view to secure food through irrigation practices. The major objective of this paper is, therefore, to estimate livestock, domestic use and crop water productivities of SG-2000 water harvesting pilot projects in Ethiopia. The research work is entirely based upon secondary data obtained from various organizations and publications. The water productivity magnitudes for livestock, domestic and crop productions are found to be Birr 40.71, 213.42 and 8.04 per m3 of water respectively. To show the importance of the opportunity cost of water, these productivity values are recalculated taking the market price of water in rural areas as the denominator. As the result, livestock, domestic use and crop water productivity magnitudes, respectively, are birr 1.63, 8.54 and 0.32 per birr of water. The research finding shows that water used for domestic use and livestock generates the greatest benefit for rural households. IIntroduction 1.1Background A debate can under go whether livestock production or crop cultivation may be preferred as an important pathway for a farmer to get out of poverty in water scarce areas of developing countries like Ethiopia. For instance Peden et al (2005(a)) argues that because animal products have high value compared with most staple plant based foods, livestock production will likely be increasingly valued as an effective strategy to alleviate poverty in situations where market opportunities exist. According to these authors, water productivity of animal products derived from consumption of crop residues is competitive with crop production thus in terms of water productivity livestock can make an important contribution to poverty alleviation. However, SIWI states that water requirements to produce one kg of grain-fed beef and poultry require at least 15mand about 5m respectively, but grains, pulses, and root crops require less than two m/kg produced. Such figures have led many policy makers and investors to conclude that animal production should be discouraged because it uses too much water in a water scarce world (Peden et al 2005(b)). These conflicting views may arise due to the ignorance of the important roles livestock play in contributing high quality food products to human diets and in providing animal power for crop production that enhances food security in most agricultural water development. In other words, there seems usually undervaluation of benefits from livestock in the planning of many agricultural development projects in developing countries. Thus, promoting the multiple use of water (MUS) in these water scarce areas certainly increase the water productivity (WP) provided the existing water resource is not optimally used yet. That means, WP can be improved if the available water is under utilized and the extra investment costs to generate extra benefits from water in a certain irrigation and/or harvested water schemes are low compared to extra benefits. Even if, theoretically, one of the practices (livestock or crop) may generate higher WP, it would be very difficult to recommend for a typical farmer in Ethiopia to follow producing only one of the two depending on the magnitude of WP. Because in drought prone areas livestock serve as copping mechanisms (store of assets), * Birr is Ethiopian currency. Currently 1U.S.Dollar = 8.5 birr.