Farmer-led irrigation leads to better yields

Small-scale irrigation provides food security, protection against climate risks.

STOCKHOLM: Farmer-led irrigation schemes provide better food security, protect millions of farmers from climate risks and reduce poverty in the sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, a new study showed Friday.

Between 2009 and 2012, the AgWater project, on which the report is based, studied small-scale irrigation systems among more than 1,000 farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the aid and structural mechanisms.

The findings are of particular interest as food prices escalated due to a weak monsoon season in Asia and a brutal drought in the mid-western and central US – largest producer of corn and soybean. When farmers manage their small-scale irrigation systems themselves their yields can increase by up to 300% in some cases and add tens of billions of dollars to household revenues, the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI) found in its study. The researchers cited the example of a small region in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh where reservoirs were built to store water from the monsoons. The water can be stored for up to seven months and makes it possible to increase the amount of arable land during the dry season from 23% to 95%.

“It impacts on the farmer’s income and the whole community. It was very impactful for me to see that change,” study coordinator Meredith Giordano said. Of the sub-Saharan Africa’s renewable water resources, only 3% are used for agriculture, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Only about 4% of arable land is equipped for irrigation, of which less than 6% is serviced by groundwater. “We have been focusing on large scale solutions but there is a large range of options out there,” Giordano said. “Small-scale water technologies are very efficient and a lot of farmers, in groups or individually, adopted them and they are transforming their lives,” she added. “It is not one or the other. We need investments along the range,” she said.

The study makes recommendations to politicians, organisations and investors to help develop innovative solutions. The researchers studied numerous options, including pumps, basins, reservoirs, groundwater drainage and various resources used by farmers to improve the situation, Giordano said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2012.