Institutional Change and its Effect to Performance of Water Usage Assocition in Irrigation Water Managements

Abstract

Water irrigation plays an important role in increasing land productivity. Kedung Ombo Irrigation system is one of governmental establishment dam that fullfill agriculture irrigation water need in four related region; Grobogan, Kudus, Pati and Demak district. In structure, there are four types of canal to flow water from Kedung Ombo dam to farmer plot; primary, secondary, tertiary, and quartery canals. The first two are managed by government, while the another two are manged by water usage association-WUA or Perkumpulan Petani Pemakai Air-P3A. Our research concern is the last two; tertiary and quarterly canal management. Since 2005, farmer has been introduced indegeneusly lelang system as an alternative to manage irrigation water in farm level as replacement of swakelola system. The lelang system provide more right to farmer; not only water right but also improving agriculture infrastructutre. One of P3A is a P3A that located in Kalirejo, Undaan Sub-district, Kudus District that started to adopt the system since 2007. However, since in the lelang system head of P3A is decided by highest bidder that potentially not the farmer, their achievement to manage water and other agriculture activities were not satisfied enough. Unless in 2015 farmer tried to return the system back to swakelola system with some modification that we call as lelang-swakelola system. This research aim to (1) describe institutional change of irrigation management system in a P3A, (2) compare performance of two irrigation water management systems; lelang system and lelangswakelola

system. The data was collected from P3A seasonal record and depth interview to key infromants. The results show that lelang-swakelola system give more right to farmer: (1) providing agriculture infrastructure, (2) maintaining tertiary and quarterly canal, and (3) conducting pest control. The first two duty was the same with the lelang system, while the the last is additional duty as conducted by swakelola system before 2007. The performnace of lelang-swakelola system is known better than lelang system. This research is preliminary research that need to be expanded in more coverage the get more comprehensive finding.