Demand for Products of Irrigated Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa
Demand for Products of Irrigated Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author: P. J. Riddell

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9789251055816

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If irrigated production is to make a significant contribution to food security and economic growth in Sub Saharan Africa, it will have to be re-structured across the region as a whole. This is the main conclusion of a study undertaken by FAO to analyse the drivers of demand for irrigated production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Steeply rising commercial food import bills for staple crops across SSA are indicative of the level demand that is not being met from domestic production. The increase of area under equipped/spate irrigation for the whole of Africa over the last ten years amounts to 1.27 million ha, which is equal to about 127 000 ha a year. This rate of growth has proved too low to have an impact on food import bills and buffer regional food security. However, within subregional trading groups there is scope for consolidation of market supply. Irrigated production opportunities in SSA could be realised where natural resources and markets coincide, but only through a great deal more attention to costs of production, price formation, effective water allocation mechanisms, economically efficient water use and strong, responsive institutions.

Innovative approaches to agricultural water use for improving food security in Sub- Saharan Africa
Innovative approaches to agricultural water use for improving food security in Sub- Saharan Africa

Author: A. Inocencio

Publisher: IWMI

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 25

ISBN-13: 9290905085

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This paper provides an overview of innovative options for developing and using water for food production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in light of the growing scarcity and competition for water resources. These options include rainwater harvesting, selective development of wetlands for agriculture, exploitation of shallow groundwater, and recycling urban waste. The options are largely based on low-cost individualized technologies, which lend themselves to private-sector promotion.Water-demand management approaches are also discussed.

Smallholder Irrigation Technology
Smallholder Irrigation Technology

Author: Melvyn Kay

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 9789251045947

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This report is a view of irrigation technologies for smallholders in the context of improving rural livelihoods, especially in regard to the prospects for sub-Saharan Africa. The role of traditional technologies is evaluated and modern water distribution technologies, such as sprinkler and trickle irrigation, are reviewed. A broad classification has been made based on climate and the traditional agricultural background of the local people, which links technology options to specific places--to agricultural regions and to countries.

Private irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: regional Seminar on Private Sector Participation and Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa, Accra, Ghana, 22-26 October 2001
Private irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: regional Seminar on Private Sector Participation and Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa, Accra, Ghana, 22-26 October 2001

Author: Hilmy Sally

Publisher: IWMI

Published: 2011-10-21

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9290904941

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Only 4 percent of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated, using just 2 percent of the available water resources. Furthermore, 18 percent of the area equipped for irrigation is not utilized at all and the intensity of use varies between 50 percent and 80 percent. This highlights the huge potential available for intensifying and expanding irrigated area, provided that the investments required can be successfully mobilized. However, it must be noted that if investments in irrigation are to yield satisfactory returns, investments must also be made in a series of related activities. Current global figures for the amount of private investment in irrigation confirm that good returns can indeed be achieved. Prospects for sub-Saharan Africa would be far more favorable if public development assistance, particularly foreign direct investments, did not show declining trends.

The Impact of Irrigation on Nutrition, Health, and Gender
The Impact of Irrigation on Nutrition, Health, and Gender

Author: Laia Domenech

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2013-04-11

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13:

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Agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) is still largely rainfed. SSA also exhibits the lowest crop yields for major staples in the world, largely due to low use of irrigation and fertilizer. Rainfed agriculture poses growing production risks with increased climate variability and change. At the same time, smallholder irrigation in the region developed rapidly over the past decade, albeit starting from very low levels. In addition to largely demand-driven irrigation development by smallholders, there is a significant push by donors for large-scale irrigation development, as well as some push for smallholder irrigation. There has also been a long-standing debate about whether irrigation in SSA should be large scale or small scale to achieve its potential. However, given the potentially high rewards, but also high possibility of failure, the assessment of irrigation potential must go beyond large scale versus small scale to integrate concerns regarding environmental sustainability, resource use efficiency, nutrition and health impacts, and women’s empowerment. The hypothesis underlying this review paper is that how irrigation gets deployed in SSA will be decisive not only for environmental sustainability (such as deciding remaining forest cover in the region) and poverty reduction, but also for health, nutrition, and gender outcomes in the region. The focus of this paper is on the health, nutrition, and gender linkage. We find that to date, few studies have analyzed the impact of irrigation interventions on nutrition, health, and women’s empowerment, despite the large potential of irrigation to affect these important variables. Irrigation interventions may have differential effects on different members in the household and in the community, such as irrigators, non-irrigators, children, and women. Measuring and understanding such differences, followed by improving design and implementation to maximize gender, health, and nutrition outcomes, could transform irrigation programs from focusing solely on increased food production toward becoming an integral component of poverty-reduction strategies.

Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa
Accelerating Irrigation Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author: Tushaar Shah

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Sub-Saharan Africa urgently needs to accelerate the pace of agricultural growth to improve livelihoods, ensure food security, and keep droughts from turning into famines. However, this requires the region to increase smallholder irrigation faster than its current sluggish pace. In this respect, explosive growth since the 1970s in distributed farmer-led smallholder irrigation (FLSI) in China, South Asia, and elsewhere may offer Sub-Saharan Africa better guidance than state-led centralized large irrigation projects. Proactive policy support, prominence of market players, economies of scale and scope, village-level irrigation service markets, government incentives, and subsidies on motor pumps and boreholes have all triggered and fueled rapid expansion of motor pump-driven FLSI that made famines history and countries food-secure in Asia in a short span of a decade or two. With its ample shallow groundwater resources and sparse farming areas, Sub-Saharan Africa has immense potential to grow pump-driven FLSI quickly, cost-effectively, and without risking the environmental ill effects observed in Asia and elsewhere. A "big push" to FLSI will work better than an incremental trickle because high-volume-low-margin FLSI growth generates economies of scale and scope, which are essential. Interventions by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are useful for demonstration and piloting innovations, but market players are best placed to achieve scale. Finally, Sub-Saharan Africa can and needs to leapfrog and build its FLSI economy around solar irrigation pumps, which are destined to disrupt FLSI globally in the years to come.

Improved Agricultural Water Management for Africa’s Drylands
Improved Agricultural Water Management for Africa’s Drylands

Author: Christopher Ward

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2016-08-23

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1464808333

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D ryland regions in Sub-Saharan Africa are home to one-half of the region’s population and three-quarters of its poor. Poor both in natural resources and in assets and income, the inhabitants of drylands are highly vulnerable to droughts and other shocks. Despite a long history of interventions by governments, development agencies, and civil society organizations, there have been no sustained large-scale successes toward improving the resilience of drylands dwellers. Improved Agricultural Water Management for Africa’s Drylands describes the extent to which agricultural water management interventions in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa can enhance the resilience and improve the well-being of the people living in those regions, proposes what can realistically be done to promote improved agricultural water management, and sets out how stakeholders can make those improvements. After reviewing the current status of irrigation and agricultural water management in the drylands, the authors discuss technical, economic, and institutional challenges to expanding irrigation. A model developed at the International Food Policy Research Institute is used to project the potential for irrigation development in the Sahel Region and the Horn of Africa. The modeling results show that irrigation development in the drylands can reduce vulnerability and improve the resilience of hundreds of thousands of farming households, but rainfed agriculture will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, many soil and water conservation practices that can improve the productivity and ensure the sustainability of rainfed cropping systems are available. The purpose of this book is to demonstrate the potentially highly benefi cial role of water and water management in drylands agriculture in association with agronomic improvements, market growth, and infrastructure development, and to assess the technological and socioeconomic conditions and institutional policy frameworks that can remove barriers to adoption and allow wide-scale take-up of improved agricultural water management in the dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.