Small-scale irrigation in Africa

This post is going to focus on the activities of small scale farmers with regard to their use of irrigation. There are many problems facing small-scale farmers in Africa (especially sub-Saharan Africa) and it is worthwhile taking a look into these in some depth. This isn’t to say it is all doom and gloom as there are a number of opportunities for people to improve their irrigation techniques and earn more money from their crops. Small-scale farmers often lack access to finance for irrigation, have a lack of support from governments and international organisations, are lacking in local water resource knowledge and efficient usage and are often in competition with large scale farms. These will be looked at to investigate the issues at play for small-scale farmers in Africa.

Aid and Finance for irrigation

An article from 2013 highlighted the key problems for farmers is access to irrigation - the fact that being small-scale farmers does not provide them with the finance to develop their irrigation methods and that the government and international aid is lacking in its support of these farmers. In sub-Saharan Africa, this problem is particularly significant as many countries are reliant on aid for a large proportion of their national expenditure. The Official Development Assistance (ODA) to agriculture has been on the decline. Support for the agriculture sector has dropped from 17% in 1980 to just 6% in 2008. This shows that funding has halved in the last three decades. This is especially disappointing as the majority of this funding is likely to be spent on irrigation projects and the development of irrigation for small-scale farmers is known as a method to escape poverty. It is however still possible for many small-scale farmers to fund their own irrigation systems. One of these is known as treadle pump which is a human powered pump that draws groundwater to the surface (Figure 1). These pumps can cost in the region of $20 -$100 and despite being expensive for poor farmers in Africa, it is not impossible to gain the funds. The next stage up from this are motor pumps which are more expensive but more effective at extracting groundwater.

Elsewhere in Africa, there has been a decrease in state funded irrigation schemes such as those in Northern Province, South Africa. This included the decline in funding for central pivot irrigation and has all occurred because the state engaged in the privatisation of many services to encourage local farmers to take responsibility for their own local resources. This leads on to the next section on water resource knowledge and management.

Figure 1: A treadle pump in operation.

Local water resource knowledge, usage and management

Another major problem for small-scale irrigators is that they lack the local knowledge of resources that are available to them and how to effectively manage them. In South Africa, there is growing water scarcity and this means that water management for irrigation is becoming even more important and will continue to do so into the future. This is a major problem compounded by the fact that the new water policy will hurt small-scale farmers even more as in the near future, subsidies will progressively decline and eventually they will need to pay for the water they use. The effective management of water for irrigation will be vital because of this. Unfortunately, there is a lack of mapping of the available groundwater across Africa, which leads to great uncertainty of the accessibility to water resources. It is not known how far down the water is, the volume of water stored in underground aquifers and the rate of groundwater recharge. These are all important aspects of the groundwater resource that need to be known and understood so that water is not used too quickly and is easily accessed. Adding this knowledge would clearly benefit efficient water use for irrigation. As I have mentioned before, I feel groundwater irrigation should be used as a coping mechanism (a way of adapting) for droughts and changes in rainfall as a result of climate change both on a seasonal and inter-annual time scales. This type of research is unachievable by small-scale farmers themselves and requires the support of much larger organisations who have the expertise and finance to carry this out.

Small-scale vs large-scale

Small-scale irrigators often have to compete with larger-scale farmers in a wide variety of ways. Financial donors face the tough decision over whether to finance large-scale irrigation projects that involve dams and reservoirs or small-scale irrigation systems. A paper from 2014 investigated the advantages of investing in small-scale irrigation projects over larger projects. The research found that there was a big opportunity for the expansion of small-holder irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa that would benefit farmers with improved incomes and reduced food insecurity. There are still concerns about the effectiveness of funding these projects as individuals often lack the knowledge to utilise the irrigation techniques and land tenure insecurity reduces funding for long-term projects. This is likely to be one of the main reasons behind the continued funding of larger projects at the expense of small-holder irrigation schemes.

To conclude, it is evident that there are many factors working against small-holder irrigation in Africa but there is still hope for farmers. This area provides great potential for expansion but only if resources (time, money, expertise) are invested in it. Small-scale farming is especially important for African economies and the livelihoods of families and this is why I believe that there should be an increased focus on promoting this area of irrigated farming for growth.