Agricultural Water Managament

                                                      "Rain does not fall on one roof alone"- African Proverb

In this week I will discuss the theme of community management, which has consistently been a topic in our class lectures. Community management programs have proven to be more sustainable in terms of long-term socio-economic status of people in the community, care of the environment, and empowerment of the community through education and sharing of knowledge. In class we have considered management schemes that have been implemented in water sources for communities and in the waste management sector. For the purpose of this blog and the relation of agriculture to water I will look at management of water specifically for agricultural use and if in the future this will help food security issues.

            When discussing agricultural water management, this usually implies that the actual engineered technology for extracting water is irrigation. With the construction of an irrigation system, agricultural water management begins. Irrigation is determined by the “Area Equipped for Irrigation” (AI), which is said to increase in Africa from 15% to 25% by 2025 (Valipour, 2015). As touched on before, irrigation can result in both positive and negative outcomes. What has been noticed previously, that is imperative to the success of the irrigation scheme, is if the community is involved with the management of the irrigation itself and has been part of the entire process. If there is a weak relationship between the community farmers and the irrigation scheme, this leads to “negative or no impact on food security, household income and poverty reduction at large” (Ngenoh et al, 2015). Therefore, it is essential that management of the irrigation system is in the hands of the farmers and community itself.

            Broadly, agricultural water management focuses on three main goals; enabling the environment, organization and the individual. This is shown in figure 1 (Franks et al, 2008). Enabling the environment concerns the need for there to be policy implementation that includes multi-stakeholders that are part of the irrigation and agricultural system. Policy needs to be put into place on the management scheme directly, but also criteria of data collection and the environmental factors in place need to be considered. Communication is critical, where these different stakeholders will share their information, educate others and develop strategies. In the second part of agricultural water management, organization itself needs to be thought of. In each irrigation scheme there must be system managers, training of community members, and a concrete system that will be feasible to follow and have positive impacts for the farmers. Finally, the farmer itself as an individual needs to be thought of in this management process. Farmers need to be trained in these new agricultural techniques regarding the irrigation that would be put in place. There needs to be a continuous “knowledge network” of farmers communicating their knowledge of management, In addition, a set market for their goods, that has financial benefit to the farmers, has to be put in place (Franks et al, 2008). 

Figure 1: Layout of what an agricultural water management scheme should consider (Source)

            Studies have been done to quantify if agricultural water management has increased livelihood and food supplies in Africa. In one study AI was considered alongside water management and was given an irrigation efficiency index. This index was then compared to different variables. In the case of AI and the human development index, in all parts of Africa when the AI index increased, there was as increase in the human development index (Valipour, 2015). This is depicted in figure 2, where there is a clear increase throughout all areas of Africa. 

Figure 2: Data of study showing Human Development Index, vertical axis with AI index, horizontal axis (Source)

 A study conducted in Kenya also looked at the implications of agricultural water management in irrigation development and its effect on community members. In this study, productivity was the variable measured. The graph in figure 3 shows crop productivity from 1998 to 2010. From 2008 to 2010 the productivity showed a high increase because of the start of the public irrigation management scheme being put in place in Kenya (Ngenoh et al,2015). In this scheme, public irrigation depended on communtity agricultural water management systems. Therfore this increase also confirms that community involvement is necessary for increased crop yield. 

Figure 3: Graph displaying crop productivity versus year (Source)

In conclusion, there is a large consensus in the literature around agricultural water management that this is the quintessential way to produce sustainable food production and socio-economic status of the farmers themselves. It is key that farmers are fully integrated in the management of the irrigation process, and this should be done by education, communication, and policy put in place to create a long-lasting management scheme. As this blog continuously considers the future of food security in Africa, agricultural water management is something that should be imperative to countries in Africa to secure future populations in their supply of food.