Weather shocks, irrigation development and poverty: evidence from rural Northeast Thailand and Central Vietnam

Abstract

Water is critical for agriculture in developing countries and climate change has created more extreme weather events. In this study, we examine the role of villages’ year-round irrigation in ensuring households’ irrigation to cope with weather shocks and investigate the effects of irrigation on income and poverty of rural households. Our results show that the availability of villages’ year-round irrigation significantly increases the share of irrigated land area at the household level, which leads to higher crop income and household income, and lower poverty. Therefore, developing year-round irrigation is recommended.