Farmers’ Participation in Irrigation Management in the Punggur Utara Irrigation Area, Indonesia

Abstract

Farmers’ participation in water resource management in Indonesia has been accommodated through Law No. 7/2004 and Government Regulation No. 20/2006 regarding irrigation. In government regulations, farmers’ participation in irrigation water management has been described in detail, with one of the components of irrigation network management being operations and maintenance. Most irrigation system problems are related to irrigation networks. Farmers’ participation in the Water Users Association (WUA), a farmer institution responsible for managing and developing irrigation networks at the tertiary level, determines how irrigation network management activities are carried out. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the socio-economic characteristics of farmers and of group participation of a WUA in carrying out irrigation management activities in operations and maintenance activities. The result is connected to the physical condition of the irrigation network. The research took place in the village of Sumber Rejo in the Punggur Utara irrigation area, which is in Lampung Province, Indonesia, and is where WUA Harapan Maju is active. Samples were determined based on a random sampling method, which found that the sample size required for the study was 80 farmers. The results show that of socio-economic factors, the most influential is the number of farmers’ dependents, followed by the land area owned by each farmer. It was also found that group participation of WUA Harapan Maju was categorised as “barely” adequate. This result was confirmed by the condition of the irrigation system in the Punggur Utara irrigation area, which was also “barely” adequate, and the system’s operations and maintenance needed to be improved.