Evaluation of the national irrigation policy: the method of quasi-experimental impact for assessment applied to Jaíba Project

Abstract

This paper aims to assess the impacts of the National Irrigation Policy (NIP) in the São Francisco River basin in northern Minas Gerais state, more specifically the impacts of Jaíba Project - Level I. It was implemented in 1975 in Manga town, the first and largest irrigation district in the region occupying an area of 24,752 hectares irrigable. From the methodological point of view, it was used a quasi-experimental method of impact for assessment in order to identify factors that characterized the municipalities of the basin in the period prior to the shares of PNI, as well as the definition of a group of municipalities not benefited by Jaíba Project implantation (control group) for comparison with the municipality of Manga, whose territory covered the current Jaíba and Matias Cardoso (the benefited ones). The analysis showed that the impacts of the project were evidenced in different ways in relation to the indicators examined, and the economic ones were the most impacted by the implementation of the project. Thus, it is concluded that Jaíba Project achieves partially the expected results because, although there is positive impacts on agricultural production, job generation and growth in GDP per capita, on the other hand, it was noticed that the project had not enough force to propel the indicators of human development and income distribution of the benefited municipality.