Smallholder Irrigation for a Greener Africa

Smallholder farmers make up close to 70% of agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Most of the crops on these lands are rain-fed, hence their production is highly susceptible to variabilities in rainfall (Koigi, 2022). As such, there is a huge potential to boost agricultural productivity through irrigation. For instance, farmers who are able to produce during dry seasons tend to earn substantially more (Jayne et al. 2016).

Construction plans are already underway to build new and expand existing irrigation systems, such as the Shire Valley Transformation Programme in Malawi and the Bura and Mwea in Kenya (Merrey, 2020). These large-scale programmes are well-funded by institutions like the World Bank. However, is larger necessarily better?

The Office du Niger Tragedy

In 1932, the French colonisers established a canal irrigation system at the Niger River in Mali to scale up the cotton supply for their booming textile industry. Known as ‘Office du Niger’, it is one of the oldest and largest irrigation systems in the Sahel (figure 1). The scheme forced farmers to transition from cultivating diversified crops to monoculture (Staunton 2021). Very soon, however, the soil began to degrade, and farmers started suffering from malnutrition and loss of livelihoods (Bjornlund et al., 2020). Office du Niger is one of the major examples where the expansion and institutionalisation of irrigation leave drastic deterioration in local conditions.

Figure 1: Map of Office du Niger (Brondeau, 2018)

The donor curse and causes of failure

Donors and funding agencies are drawn to large-scale, profitable projects, as they are more rewarding and impressive than funding individual farmers, which is evident in multiple cases (e.g., Kikuchi et al., 2020; Staunton 2021).

Figure 2: correlation between project size, unit costs
and return on investment of irrigation projects in SSA (Fujiie et al., 2011)

Larger systems also tend to be output-oriented rather than risk-averse. Smallholder irrigation systems, on the other hand, are readily adapted to the local environments and can more quickly react to changes as they are not constrained by rigid irrigation or management systems (Bjornlund, Bjornlund and van Rooyen, 2020). Moreover, large-scale schemes require substantially higher upfront investment into systems considered ‘over-sophisticated’, that require continuous maintenance funding (Veldwisch et al., 2013) (figure 2). In addition, African countries - inherently diverse and with a postcolonial legacy - often lack strong central governments, political consensus and management capacities compared to countries like China, making it more challenging to sustain centralised schemes (Giordano et al., 2012; Kikuchi et al., 2020).

Small is beautiful

That small-scale irrigation succeeds over large-scale, centralised systems in SSA is, in fact, a prime example of Elinor Ostrom’s eminent idea on the collective management of common pool resources (Bjornlund et al., 2020). Here are some ways to promote small-holder irrigation: 

• constructing storage infrastructure to ensure reliable water access;

• investing in developing institutional capacity and promoting micro-scale irrigation technologies (Mati et al., 2008);

• abolishing post-colonial legacy, and engaging smallholder farmers in the design and implementation processes of irrigation systems (Ostrom, 1992; Staunton 2021).