Small-Scale Irrigation: Present & Future

Small-Scale Irrigation: Present & Future

Claudia RinglerIFPRI

Small-Scale Irrigation: A thriving but overlooked sector with large potential

• In many SSA countries reaches more farmers than public irrigation

• Significant income boost in the dry season• Significant farmer demand and own investment

Source of images: IWMI/IFPRI/SUA.

Source: IWMI (2012).

To unlock this potential, need to..

Source: IWMI (2012).

…implement business models, such as irrigation service providers

• One service provider is linked to several irrigators

• Paid for the service per hour

…target women to increase involvement in AWM activities Irrigation favors male

dominated crops Lack of access to finance Lack of access to

information Ex: 20% of bucket and

water-can users are women, but less than 5% of motor pump owners are female

Source: IWMI (2012).

Small-Scale Irrigation: New analyses

• Expanded geographies• New solutions• Benefits of SSI beyond yields & revenues (climate resilience, health, nutrition, and gender)

New geographies: Flood and dry-season management in Nigeria

• Develop AWM solutions to support flood recession agriculture and improve dry season farming.

• Evidence on the extent of flooding and flooding patterns to guide decision-making on flood response Irrigation suitability for small reservoirs: Anambra,

Benue, and Kogi States, Nigeria. Source: Xie et al. forthcoming

New solutions: Solar Pumps and Wetting Front Detector

Photo credit: Petra Schmitter/IWMI.

• Capacity Building on: a) Financial Literacy of farmers and financial institutions; b) Access to loans for irrigation technologies (revolving fund); and c) Assessment of financial institutions’ lending capacity for irrigation technology

• Potential and limitations of PPP for irrigation

New solutions: SSI and financing

Photo: Abby Waldorf.

• To what extent can SSI address climate variability and long-term climate change?

• Is SSI a climate-resilient activity and to what extent is SSI a precursor to any other climate-smart agricultural activity?

Benefits: SSI and climate resilience

Benefits: SSI and health

Benefits: SSI and nutrition (in red statistically significant changes)

Ethiopia Tanzania Non-irrigators

n=185Irrigators

n=284Non-irrigators

n=224Irrigators

n=227Mean Mean Mean Mean

Household food insecurity access scale, 0-27 [higher means worse] 5.78 4.04 3.92 2.58

Female dietary diversity score: number of categories consumed 3.69 3.58 3.71 4.20

Household dietary diversity: number of food categories consumed 5.69 6.06 4.88 5.63

Source: IFPRI-ILSSI 2016.

Benefits: SSI and women’s empowerment Assessment of women’s

empowerment for irrigators versus non-irrigators

Women’s decision-making over irrigated plots

Women’s time use for collecting domestic water

Without additional interventions access to SSI does not necessarily enhance women’s empowerment

Image: IWMI.

Source: IFPRI-ILSSI 2016.

Conclusion SSI continues to grow in SSA SSI has the potential for large-scale benefits beyond

yields and income if climate resilience, health, nutrition, and gender considerations are actively promoted, if there is sufficient support for input and output markets, and if information and credit constraints are addressed

For SSI to remain successful, institutions for managing shortages and depletion are also urgently needed.