Agricultural Productivity Impact of a Mini-Dam: A Case Study of Ziarat, Balochistan

Water scarcity in Balochistan is more severe as of Pakistan. Ground water level is depleting day by day. One of the solutions for such problem is to store water through mini-dams. This study is conducted to find an impact of mini-dam on agricultural productivity in Ziarat, taking apple as the main crop. Primary data of 80 households are collected from two villages (one having a dam and other without having a dam) namely Kawas and Verchoom through stratified random sampling. Cobb-Douglas production function is utilised to form the production function for apple and estimated by using OLS technique. Nine explanatory variables are used for finding the impact over apple yield i.e. farm size, farmer education, farming experience, tree age, fertiliser, irrigation number, pruning and dummy (for capturing the importance of dam). Results revealed that all variables are found significant except farming experience, pruning and tree age. It is concluded that mini-dam played an important role in increasing agricultural productivity, livelihood of the community and contribute positively in improving their living standard.