More value flows from irrigation in southern Africa

Technologies introduced through the project included a wetting front detector, a probe that indicates the depth to which water has infiltrated the soil and monitors the soil nutrients, and a moisture probe that shows farmers when the soil has the right amount of moisture. These soil tools were invented by Dr Richard Stirzaker at CSIRO with ACIAR support and are available at VIA Farm.

‘These simple technologies are relatively cheap to produce and easy to use, and can help farmers massively improve the efficient use of irrigation resources,’ said Professor Pittock.

‘There was an issue with farmers practically drowning their crops and washing away their fertilisers. So when we provided farmers with these tools, they very quickly learned they only had to apply half as much water and, in turn, saw a significant improvement in yields.

‘We have demonstrated how to achieve sustainable intensification of agriculture in these systems. This is crucial knowledge if the world is to feed a population of 10 billion people with limited land and water while minimising greenhouse gas emissions.

‘Reducing the amount of water applied also saved time and labour. Farmers had more time to spend on building off-farm businesses, intensifying their farming, or spending time with family.’

One knock-on effect was to reduce conflicts between farmers in the same irrigation scheme, as those at the head of the canal had been using too much water, leaving not enough water for those at the end of the canal.

‘Because farmers were fighting with each other over water, a lot of cooperative things were not happening to help the irrigation scheme work well, such as maintaining the infrastructure and buying inputs in bulk,’ said Professor Pittock.

Improving the water usage in these systems meant that yields increased significantly, but this created another potential issue: flooding the market with too much produce.

‘This is where the development of AIPs became crucial,’ said Professor Pittock. ‘We sat down with farming communities and asked them to draw a picture of where they wanted their community to be in 5 years, and then a second picture of where it is now, and then to list the barriers and opportunities to get where they wanted to be.’

Tanzania project co-lead Dr Makarius Mdemu, Ardhi University, said the AIPs brought together the various stakeholders of these schemes. These included farmers and agricultural officers from local government, government agencies that were responsible for regulations and non-government organisations.

This process identified 2 main issues: the high cost of inputs and the lack of markets. The AIPs provided networks and communication streams to help farmers resolve these issues.

It helped farmers to connect with agricultural supply businesses to set up bulk sales and reduce the price of inputs. It also connected them with end users of the crop produce so farmers could get a better sense of what buyers were looking for and plant the appropriate crops with preferred timings for markets.

‘They may have different interests, but they share a common vision,’ said Dr Mdemu. ‘We saw that with some of the barriers, farmers had the capability to address it themselves, which greatly improved the social cohesion.

‘Some barriers were issues with the system itself, and they could then bring in the appropriate experts to assist them.’

For example, 2 schemes involved in the project identified that they did not have a big enough budget assigned to irrigation infrastructure maintenance, so they brought in a lawyer to help them change their constitution.

‘Our government put a lot of investment into the irrigation infrastructures, but less into building the capacity of farmers,’ said Dr Mdemu.

‘One of the big successes of this project has been the organisational capacity building that has occurred through these AIPs, which means farmers have networks and are now able to manage the irrigation schemes sustainably.’