**5. Summary and Conclusions**

This research showed the potential benefits of the solar-powered water-lifting system (MajiPump) and CA technologies on water productivity and crop yields under on-farm conditions of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. The capacity of two MajiPumps used in this study (MP400 and MP200) were found to extract water up to a maximum depth of 10 m using MP200 with 150 W rigid panel, 14 m using MP400 with 200 W flexible panel, and to 18 m using MP400 with 200 W rigid panel from shallow groundwater wells. The corresponding flow rate discharge capacity for these pumps and panel sizes were in the range of 7.8 L/min to 24.6 L/min, 3 L/min to 15 L/min, and 3.6 L/min, to 22.2 L/min, respectively.

Water and crop productivity were significantly increased under the CA farming system when compared with CT, both using farmers' common overhead irrigation (hose system). Water productivity was improved by 9% to 256%, and crop productivity was improved by 15% to 170% depending on the types of crops, and seasons of production (i.e., dry irrigated and rainfed). This shows the CA farming system has increased significant benefits (watersaving and crop yield increment) to farmers even using traditional overhead irrigation. However, the use of drip irrigation with the CA system further improved water and crop productivity as compared to the combination of the CA system with overhead irrigation. Besides, a significant increase in water productivity was observed in the combined use of MajiPump and CA when compared with the pulley water-lifting system. We conclude that the solar MajiPump with CA and drip irrigation is a promising approach to expand small-scale irrigation that can improve some key vegetable and grain crops of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia [7].

**Author Contributions:** T.T.A. contributed to the experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, and drafted the manuscript; T.F.A. contributed to the experimental design, data acquisition and analysis; A.Y.Y. contributed to experimental design, data collection and analysis; S.A.B. contributed to the data analysis and interpretation, revised the manuscript; Y.M.D. contributed to data collection and revising the manuscript; S.T.H. contributed to data collection and revising the manuscript, S.A.T. contributed to the data analysis and revising the manuscript; M.R.R. contributed to revising the

manuscript; P.V.V.P. contributed to revising the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification (Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-L-14-00006, Kansas State University) funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USAID or Kansas State University.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to acknowledge the Ethiopian National Meteorological Agency (ENMA) for providing quality data for this research. Contribution no. 21-122-J from Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## **References**


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