| Who benefits from irrigation development in an economy and who should pay for the cost? This question so far has not been well addressed in the irrigation literature. To answer this question we need to know, in addition to the information on farmers' level benefits (increased crop productivity), the magnitude of the total economy wide benefits derived by the farm and non-farm sector in the economy from irrigation development. In this study, taking an example from India, we have estimated the marginal benefits of irrigation, both direct (farm level benefits) and total (rural economy wide). Then we compute irrigation multiplier values in India, which range from 3 to 4.5. This suggests that two thirds or more of the benefits from irrigation development have... |
