A Comparative Assesment Of Performance Of Private And Cooperative Institutional Arrangements Of Irrigation Schemes: Case Study Of Mbarali District, Tanzania

ABSTRACT 

The study to compare performance of private and cooperative institutional arrangements of irrigation schemes was conducted in Mbarali District. Two irrigation schemes; Igomero cooperative institution scheme and Mbarali Estate private institution scheme were compared. The study was directed by a hypothesis that there is no difference in performance of irrigation schemes under each institutional arrangement. Both primary and secondary data were collected and then analysed using regression, gross margin and returns on investments to establishing if there is any significance difference between the two institutional arrangements. Scheme performance was captured based on physical, institutional and economic ratio factors. Statistical results showed that there were significant performance differences between private and cooperative irrigation schemes based on factors mentioned above. Overall the performance of cooperative irrigation scheme was found better by scoring 84.11% as compared to privately managed irrigation scheme which scored 78.45%. In physical factors, private company scored 36.11% compared to cooperative scheme scored 33.69%. In economic factors cooperative scheme scored 37.28% while private scheme scored 30.13% and in institutional factors cooperative irrigation scheme performed better by scoring 8.64% while private scheme scored 7.64%. Based on the findings of this study, the following is recommended: irrigators from private irrigation scheme should form organisation which will present their need to the management, irrigators are also to be allowed to plant their crops early so as to fetch better prices in early season contrary the current prevailing bylaw of waiting the investor to plant first. Cooperative scheme should find better ways to collect revenues from farmers on time hence sustainability of their scheme and finally all irrigation schemes should employ extension workers.