2005 Volume 7 Pages 1-17
The effect of irrigators' associations on the productivity of rice farming is examined, using data obtained from two irrigation systems in the Philippines, one with an irrigators' association and the other without. The estimation of the production function confirms that the irrigators' association is not effective in reducing inequitable water distribution among the different locations in the system, and fails to demonstrate that it provides any significant advantages over the system with no irrigators' association in terms of productivity. However, we found that the mean level of farmers' technical efficiency is higher and the variation in farmers' technical efficiency is smaller in the system with the irrigators' association than in the system without an irrigators' association, suggesting that the irrigators' association is effective in ensuring the efficient and equitable distribution of water among farmers within each location in the system.
