Farmer-led Irrigation

Farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) has been part of the farming system for hundreds of years, but has only recently attracted increased attention from government institutions, donors and development organizations. Yet, despite its vast potential, FLID has only been expanding slowly. Barriers to scaling include inadequate policy and legal frameworks, underdeveloped irrigation technology and supply chains, a lack of affordable finance, and limited access to input and output markets. Transformative scaling of FLID requires identifying the sociotechnical innovation bundles that fit, designing and implementing effective scaling strategies, and fostering multi-actor engagement and partnerships to achieve impact and trigger changes across farm, local, national, regional and global scales.

Irrigation expansion is critical for agricultural and rural development, food and nutrition security, and climate change adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Lack of accessible energy for irrigation development due to limited off- and on-grid infrastructure and the resulting dependence on costly fuel-based irrigation have been key inhibiting factors for irrigation expansion in the region. Off-grid solar-powered irrigation pumps (SIPs) can overcome many of the energy access and other challenges in the region, but their uptake has been slow. Given the nascent development of the solar irrigation sector in SSA, this paper combines a review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature with key informant interviews to identify systemic barriers to the adoption and growth of solar-powered irrigation. We identify uncovered risks, lack of incentives, and lack of capacity as the key factors limiting the adoption of solar-powered irrigation. Moreover, despite significant global cost reductions, solar-powered irrigation systems remain costly in SSA due to limited market development and geographical constraints. Lack of regulation and low investment in building local institutions and value chains further affect uptake and inhibit leveraging the energy transition for ensuring food security and agriculture-led poverty alleviation in SSA. We propose a move away from thinking of SIPs as “silver bullets” and towards a systems approach and the design of context-specific solutions to address risks, incentives and capacity challenges.

Governments in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are keen to expand irrigation to improve food security and are placing particular emphasis on adoption and use of smallholder private groundwater irrigation. Yet private irrigation is a multi-stage technology, the adoption of which is affected by fiscal support and extension services offered on different investment stages but also by uncertainties around actions that need to be undertaken in these stages. Groundwater-based irrigation in Ethiopia presents a case where policy has focused on fiscally easing the purchase of pumps while considerable ambiguity (unquantifiable uncertainty) exists around the outcomes of drilling boreholes (reaching water). In this paper, we examine farmers’ willingness to adopt smallholder private irrigation packages in response to lower pump prices following tax breaks, loan availability, and reduction in ambiguities related to borehole drilling, using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in two districts of Ethiopia. The results indicate that the provision of loans and reduction in ambiguities related to well drilling have the greatest effect on the probability of farmers adopting irrigation packages. Lowering pump prices has the smallest effect. Pump-type has a small effect, with energized pumps preferred over manual ones. In exploring heterogeneity in preferences, we find that farmers without irrigated plots and those with greater market access have a greater preference for the provision of loans, while those with greater market access also have greater preferences for reductions in well drilling ambiguities. The results of this choice experiment suggest that reducing ambiguities around well drilling (initial investments) is an essential and cost-effective step toward expanding groundwater-based irrigation in Ethiopia.

Achieving gender equality in irrigation can result in greater production, income, and job opportunities for both men and women smallholder farmers from diverse social groups, while building climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa. In Ethiopia, national irrigation agencies, donors, and researchers have been assisting project implementers to mainstream gender issues into the planning and implementation of irrigation programs. However, although efforts to close gender gaps in irrigation have been increasing, little is known about how interactions among institutions at different scales may determine the success of gender-mainstreaming strategies. This study presents a qualitative analysis of how the interaction of institutions at multiple levels can shape the success of gender-mainstreaming strategies. Specifically, the study analyzed how institutionsapos; rules, roles, and capacities at state, market, community, and household levels shaped strategies in Ethiopiaapos;s nine small-scale and micro irrigation development projects. The findings show that ‘rule-based’ strategies adopted by small, scheme-based irrigation projects emphasize policies and rules for equal rights and opportunities for equal participation in individualsapos; and institutionsapos; decision-making and capacity development. ‘Role-based’ strategies adopted by projects promoting small-scale and micro irrigation technologies focus on challenging social norms to address the imbalance of power and workloads by developing the capacity of all stakeholders. Both strategies focus on women and use participatory approaches to ensure gender equality. Negative stereotypes about women from families, communities, and the private sector often make it difficult for gender mainstreaming to succeed. Furthermore, institutional biases and limited capacities reproduce gender inequality by reinforcing stereotypical gender norms. Transformative gender mainstreaming strategies are critical to holistic approaches that facilitate change at different scales through broad-based partnerships between actors. It calls for 1) enacting policy, creating an institutional environment, and developing governance mechanisms for mainstreaming gender; 2) enhancing the accountability system and adoption of gender-transformative approaches to involve more women farmers in designing, planning, and management; 3) creating a supportive institutional environment at market, community and household level that helps women farmers invest in irrigation; and 4) applying an intersectional lens in gender analysis and mainstreaming.

Given the generally low adoption of early climate change response technologies among tree crop producers in sub-Saharan Africa, stakeholders interested in the commercialization or scaling of such technologies will require empirical evidence of their market prospects. Using a double-bounded contingent valuation approach, the study evaluated the willingness and ability of 523 Ghanaian producers to invest in solar-powered irrigation pumps (SPIPs) for cocoa irrigation. The sample was split into three segments based on farm size: resource-poor, resource-limited, and resource-rich. Our results show that effective demand increased across the resource segments, with resource-endowed farmers more likely to demand SPIPs than resource-limited or resource-poor farmers. Also, while willingness to invest (WTI) depended on resourcefulness (land), farmers’ ability to invest was directly related to their resource (income class) endowment. We found that WTI across the resource segments was positively influenced by income, education, livestock ownership, credit, and extension services and negatively affected by household size and age of cocoa trees. Among others, we propose that promotional strategies for SPIPs should incorporate well-planned initiatives for income diversification and microcredit services to improve the financial position of the resource-poor and limited segment to encourage the adoption of these technologies.