(DP 1979-17) The Impact of Two Communal Irrigation Projects in the Philippines

The economic impact of two communal irrigation projects in the Philippines is assessed. One of the projects is a small-scale communal gravity system while the other is a communal pump system. It is shown that the benefits of both projects appear to substantially outweigh the projects' cost. In addition, both projects mobilize low opportunity cost resources (primarily labor) so that small rice farmers are able to grow two crops of rice per year instead of one. Although both of the projects appear to be profitable from a societal benefit-cost viewpoint, some of the project farmers do not necessarily gain that much. Institutional factors such as land tenure and credit affect the returns to individual farmers in both systems.