Yusuf Kedir,1 Tena Alamirew,2 Paulos Dubale,1 Girma Taddese3 and D. Peden3
1 Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization (EARO), Melkassa Research Center
P.O. Box 436, E-mail: yuskedd@yahoo.com or yuskedd@freemail.et
2 Alemaya University, P.O. Box 138, Alemaya, Ethiopia
3 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), P.O. Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Design consideration for sustainability and management simplicity
Irrigation layout and water management
Stakeholder participation in scheme design
Farmers' socio-cultural and farming system
Irrigation users' capacity and skill
Abstract
As part of the development community's fascination with the field of appropriate technologies, a range of technologies, techniques and practices have been developed over the years for smallholders. However, many, if not most, technologies have not been successful in their management and sustainability. While some of the technologies simply did not perform up to the expectations of the farmers, there is a natural tendency to over-emphasise the technology itself rather than pay attention to the process by which it is identified, modified and disseminated. Most frequently, the end customer–the farmer–has been left out of the process altogether.
In practice, small scheme developments are not likely to justify design studies of the type and scale of those conventionally carried out for large irrigation projects. Design manuals tend to be specific to some technical aspects and generally make little references to socio-economic and irrigation management issues.
Design of small-scale irrigation development should deal with both technical and non-technical issues, which affect the management and sustainability of schemes. Issues that have paramount importance for sustainability of irrigation schemes include:
- identifying the scheme
- establishing the adequacy of the available resources
- identifying beneficiaries' socio-economic, skill and farming system
- promoting participatory process between farmers and irrigation staff
- identifying traditional practices and implementing appropriate design and
- anticipating and planning for scheme operation and maintenance.
The first question in any discussion of irrigation, as stated by Turner (1994), is the definition. Certainly irrigation is the application of water to living plants. There could be great differences between countries and agencies over what is meant by 'small'. In fact, according to the Indian definition, small is regarded as large in Africa. Turner (1994) also points out that irrigation systems can be classified according to size, source of water, management style, degree of water control, source of innovation and type of technology. Most authors, however, agree that concepts of local management and simple technology should be combined with size, and the best working definition seems to be that used by the UK working group on small-scale irrigation (SSI): small-scale irrigation is 'irrigation, usually on small plots, in which farmers have the major controlling influence and using a level of technology which the farmers can effectively operate and maintain'.
Moreover, small-scale irrigation can be defined as irrigation, usually on small plots, in which small farmers have the controlling influence, using a level of technology, which they can operate and maintain effectively. In terms of management, there are three broad types of smallholder schemes: government-managed, farmer-managed, and jointly-managed schemes. Farmer-managed schemes are developed by the government but owned and managed by the farmers' irrigation management committees or water users' association with minimal government interventions. Small-scale irrigation is, therefore, farmer managed: farmers must be involved in the design process and, in particular, with decisions about boundaries, the layout of the canals, and the position of outlets and bridges. In similar fashion, FAO (1996) defined it as: Farmer-managed irrigation schemes of a few hundred square metres to a several thousand hectares, developed, operated and maintained by individuals, families, communities, or local rulers and landowners, independently of government, and generally for the production of basic food or fibre crops and vegetables for local markets.
Unlike its definition, almost all authors agree on the advantages of small-scale irrigation over weighs its disadvantages especially in the developing countries (Walker 1989; FAO 1996; Mekuria 2003). And their detailed explanation can be more or less summarised as: In all countries, smallholder schemes are attractive because of the low capital investment required and the demonstrated capacity of the beneficiaries to manage, operate and maintain the systems. In addition to the above, small-scale irrigation schemes are also being promoted because of the associated benefits listed below:
Small-scale irrigation will also enable farmers to increase crop intensities through double cropping, supplementary watering during drought, as well as enable crop/forage growth in dry areas.
Smallholder irrigation, despite being small-scale, is complex; moreover, its success and sustainability demand careful holistic design (Chancellor 2000). Sustainability concept, when viewed within the context of smallholder irrigation development, generally refers to the long-term ability of the beneficiaries to operate and maintain their schemes profitability with little or no external intervention other than the normal extension services. Therefore, sustainable smallholder irrigation development entails devising a technical, social and economic production system, which guarantees that the farmers' goals of increased levels of income, increased levels of food security in the household, employment opportunities and general improvement of their standards of living are sustained through effective management of their irrigation system (Tom et al. 1999; Stephen 2002a). Besides irrigation management simplicity, sustainability requires that farmers have appropriate incentives, normally financial, for continuing to irrigate. Among various issues that affect sustainability in smallholder schemes, 'design of the irrigation scheme' is the major component that needs special consideration (Chancellor and Hide 1997).
By design consideration we mean a condition that needs an account during the planning and development of the physical works of irrigation schemes and helps for the sustenance of the scheme. The main issues on the design of technical components are installation, operation and maintenance costs of irrigation systems, mechanisms to achieve efficient and equitable water allocation (particularly at times of water shortage) and to control water losses (Hasnip 2001). All these have played crucial roles in the management and sustainability of smallholder irrigation schemes.
From past experiences concerning development of small-scale schemes, irrigation systems are often designed to maximise efficiencies and minimise labour and capital requirements. Questions that are common to all irrigation systems are when to irrigate, how much to apply, and if efficiency can be improved. For sustainability and management simplicity, large number of considerations must be taken into account in the selection of an irrigation system. These will vary from location to location, crop to crop, year to year, and farmer to farmer. In general, these considerations will include the compatibility of the system with other farm operations, economic feasibility, topographic and soil properties, crop characteristics and social constraints (Walker 1989).
The design, which involves the lowest investment cost per hectare, may not be the most cost effective solution if it also involves large numbers of staff for its operation, or if, because of operational difficulty, it cannot be used to its full capacity. On the other hand, a design to improve water use efficiency on a traditional irrigation system by introducing 'modern' water control structures may not result in overall efficiency gains if the users reject the modern controls in favour of their traditional proportional dividers (FAO 1996; Hasnip 2001). Apart from this general assertion, other issues that merit debate are:
The individual components of the system and the way in which they are combined must reflect the way in which the system will be operated and maintained, from field level up to head works. According to Chancellor and Hide (1997), decision on holding and block size, irrigation stream, canal discharges and length, types and sizes of control structures must accommodate, amongst other issues:
The layout of an irrigation scheme has impacts on farmers; firstly, in determining their access to irrigated land and; secondly, in determining the nature and extent of work load. However, layout depends primarily on topography, soils, cost and water delivery choices and should be influenced by the perceptions of the community about how the schemes' size and shape will affect them. Inevitably, not everyone will have the same views and needs. Thus, it is very important to attain effective participation of all the stakeholders before the layout of a scheme is determined and finalised.
Water lost to the system has a number of serious implications of irrigation technology as a whole and the sustainability of the small-scale schemes in particular. Presuming a reasonable match of available water to crop water requirements and total command areas, water losses will lead to diminished production because there will not be enough water to irrigate the full planned command area. Over watering using more water than is required for satisfactory crop production—can cause the same effect, exacerbating the challenge of meeting the needs of both 'head tail-enders' within the irrigated perimeter (Tom et al. 1999).
Management inability of the farmers to control water losses in the irrigation system layout can dramatically exacerbate the trouble of sustainability issues and erode the achievement of the irrigation schemes through:
In general, communal schemes require co-operation between members. Moreover, scheme layout is strongly affected by the schedule of water at the field level and the functioning of the distribution system affects the overall performances of a scheme.
Irrigation development involves various stakeholders whose roles, if not well defined and co-ordinated, could be counter-productive. Stakeholders include not only those who initiate, implement and benefit from irrigation projects, but also those who are directly or indirectly affected by such projects. Nevertheless, the most essential stakeholder is the farmer, who, if not properly integrated in the project development, may not feel obliged to play his/her role effectively, thus jeopardising the sustainability to the scheme (Stephen 2002b). Stakeholders should be integrated from the beginning of a project through effective co-ordination and clear definition of their roles.
In the beginning, the engineers assumed that the farmers could not understand the design or the functions of the structures and explanation followed after implementation. Even engineers seldom considered design alternatives among themselves. In a participatory planning method, farmers' manageable role in each step will be distinguished. Farmers will be asked how they expect the water to reach their farms, how they want to be grouped. Moreover, farmers will be allowed to give their suggestions on where the irrigation structures to be placed in the design, where to be the grazing land and together with the engineers alternatives and amendments will be made where needed (Wouter 2002).
Successful implementation requires participation in the planning and implementation process by all stakeholders, in order to create a sense of ownership of, and consequent commitment to, the project. This requires that the project planning process should allow time for the borrowers and users to participate in, or preferably drive, the planning process, and for any potential losers to have a substantive influence on decisions that affect their future. Ownership and commitment by the users are unlikely to be achieved unless they consider that the project would meet their felt needs and they have a stake in the equity—that is, they share in or bear all of the investment costs (FAO 1996; Tom et al. 1999; Mekuria 2003).
Building ownership and commitment through participation has often been difficult to achieve in the past. The conventional sequence of identification/preparation, carried out against tight deadlines by external planning teams, has seldom allowed time for genuine participation, either by government staff or farmers. On implementation, government irrigation engineers, for their part, have usually seen irrigation only from engineering, rather than a farming or social perspective. They have been reluctant to adopt participatory approaches with farmers, mainly because of a misplaced belief that farmers are unable to understand or make any contribution to technical matters, or because of concerns that participation might delay implementation or result in design changes that compromise the quality of the final product.
Undue delays in project implementation are undesirable, not least for the farmers; but taking time over stakeholders' participation in planning does not necessarily mean delay. It can often pay dividends, by preparing the implementers, ensuring smooth start-up, and building farmers' commitment to change, and may ultimately lead to more rapid implementation and a more sustainable development impact. Experience has shown that the ultimate scheme design almost always benefits from involving the users in the planning process. Farmers, or at least those with some experience or knowledge of irrigation, from the poorest illiterate smallholder to the richest well-educated commercial farmer, usually have practical ideas of what works and what does not, from their detailed local knowledge of weather patterns, hydrology, soils, markets, and so on. Communities often have strong preferences regarding the nature and location of development that needs to influence planning, such as aligning a canal to avoid excavation in sacred ground. Participatory or consultative planning is essential in rehabilitation projects or the upgrading of traditional farmer-managed irrigation systems, to take advantage of the invaluable store of cross-disciplinary knowledge that farmers possess about the existing systems.
Design should not be done away from the community with the final product presented to them as a finished job. There is need for regular consultation and input at all stages. Involving farmers in system design can also often result in significant cost savings, particularly if the farmers themselves are expected to take a share in the equity by contributing to the investment costs. Sound engineering is essential, but it can nonetheless take account of the farmers' experiences and preferences. Yet farmers, as a possible source of system design input, are still too often ignored by engineers, and as a result schemes are often inappropriately planned (FAO 1996).
Beyond the confines of the individual field, irrigation is a community enterprise. Individuals, groups of individuals, and often the state must join together to construct, operate and maintain the irrigation system as a whole. Irrigation system designers should be aware that perhaps the most important goal of the irrigation community at all levels is the assurance of equity among its members. Thus the operation, if not always the structure, of the irrigation system will tend to mirror the community view of sharing and allocation. Irrigation often means a technological intervention in the agricultural system even if irrigation has been practised locally for generations. New technologies mean new operation and maintenance practices. If the community is not sufficiently adaptable to change, some irrigation systems will not succeed (Walker 1989).
Aspects of design that are apparently primarily technical in nature may be strongly influenced by socio-cultural considerations. Farmers must be assisted to appreciate the implication in trade offs between what they want and what is technically possible (Chancellor and Hide 1997). So according to (Hasnip 2001), scheme design and management needs to account for farmer objectives and resource relationships between subsistence and cash incomes, when seeking a framework to promote business oriented, commercial irrigation farming.
Irrigation often provides water for drinking, washing, homestead gardens and trees, livestock, replenishment of aquifers, urban water supply, rural industries, fishing and aquaculture. Quantities used may be small but vital in maintaining the viability of the livelihoods of certain groups, their income, nutrition and health. Such uses of water may be critical to the livelihoods of women and other disadvantaged groups. However, it needs to be recognised that the range of stakeholders with an interest in the water resources of an irrigation system go far beyond the owners and cultivators of irrigated fields (Hasnip et al. 2001).
Irrigated agriculture and livestock enterprises often complement each other. Crop residues can be used for fodder and manure for crop production. In some farming systems, the available family labour force may not be sufficient to satisfactorily manage both traditional and irrigated farms. Irrigation of fodder crops alongside food crops should be promoted in the pastoral area to encourage the herder to adopt irrigation (Stephen 2002b). It may be feasible to provide watering points to compensate for loss of traditional sources of water.
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In these two small-scale irrigation schemes, there is no watering structure or through. Livestock use canals to drink water hence; there will be an opportunity of damaging the irrigation canals. The design of the irrigation schemes did not consider the livestock, i.e. there is no facility that could serve the livestock in the irrigation systems. However, large amount of irrigation water has been wasted at each irrigation schemes in various ways that could be allocated for the livestock production (Yusuf 2004).
Most smallholder irrigators produce one or more subsistence crops from their irrigated land. This traditional approach to farming provides for food security but does not directly generate cash income to pay for the costs of irrigated production. Planners should possess a working understanding of the interaction between irrigation and existing farming systems so as to be in a position to discuss with farmers the potential conflicts in allocating available resources (Chancellor and Hide 1997). The correct timing of agricultural tasks is important. With the assistance of farmers, planners should identify key tasks and timing for farm and household activities like water carrying and fuel gathering. Design should be sufficiently flexible to allow for reasonable changes in the cropping pattern. The farmers will need to make seasonal decision based on the potential and pricing of the market (Stephen 2002b).
Apart from the obvious technical and financial conditions, the key condition for sustainable development impact from an irrigation investment project is its implementing ability. This requires that the institutional demands of the scheme are matched to local institutional capacity, and that stakeholders are genuinely committed to the scheme through participation and local ownership. The conventional project identification/preparation approach of the past, which has left little room to participative approaches to the design, has often resulted in arriving at detailed project design only to find a mismatch with local capacity to implement it. Money and technical assistance has then been provided to bridge the gap. Technical assistance frequently then crowds out any local capacity, and may in effect substitute for local management rather than strengthen it, bringing no sustainable improvement.
Moreover, in the conventional planning process, detailed start-up and implementation plans have generally been considered as beyond the ambit of the identification/preparation team's work. So schemes should be planned to match local capacity for implementation, which implies that planning teams should first acquire a thorough appreciation of this capacity. If necessary, the scheme scope and content may be reduced to match existing implementation capacity. Technical assistance can then be applied selectively, rather than indiscriminately as often in the past, for genuinely sustainable capacity to be built. The design process should therefore give specific attention to an analysis of institutional capacity, and provide a detailed programme to enable the implementers to prepare themselves for carrying out the tasks expected of them, once the scheme becomes effective (FAO 1996).
Design has a direct bearing on land preparation, for example a design that features large plots will increase the users' need for mechanisation and farm power, thereby increasing their production costs. Field application of water, by gravity via long furrows or by pressure delivery through sprinklers, determines user need to level land or plow even furrows. Designers should identify who will be responsible for land preparation, i.e. his/her skill and what their access to resources will be and take this into account when considering the type of design that is needed if farmers are to use the available water effectively (Chancellor 2000).
Irrigation systems designed to deliver a service matched to crop water needs have, in general, failed to perform as intended. Structured design with clear operational rules and results in irrigation infrastructure that can deliver reliable services also allow the farmers to determine their own optimum cropping systems. The inherent simplicity of operation of hydraulic proportional distribution and the transparent monitoring systems make the infrastructure simple for participatory management (Albinson and Perry 2002).
The question that arises for field operations in the design is how to implement and operate the system on the field. How will the irrigator know what flow rates are actually running into the furrows, when to terminate the flow into one set of furrows and shift the field supply to another set? It refers to the way that individuals or small groups of farmers manage and apply water to their crops. As with the other technology issues, the broad choice of in-field irrigation method is made at the time of original scheme design—individual farmers have little choice, except to the extent that they are consulted during the design process (Walker 1989).
The selection of the in-field technology carries a lot of implications on the management and operation of small-scale irrigation schemes by the farmers that could be reflected on the sustainability of the scheme. Some methods may require a greater degree of co-operation between groups of users to ensure effective water distribution. The most effective management practices are dependent on the type of irrigation system and its design. Moreover, the methods of water application and maintenance requirements are determined by the design and farmers should not spend much time not to be discouraged by structure maintenance (Chancellor and Hide 1997).
For instance, sprinklers are often seen as a solution to land levelling. On sprinkler schemes other problems arise in relation to technology use, availability and cost of spare parts. This was of particular importance where pumps are used in conjunction with sprinklers or to feed gravity distribution systems. Reliability of pumps could be crucial to smallholder irrigation and may result in poor performance due to poor care and operation, rather than the pump in itself (Chancellor 2000).
Earth canal can be relatively cheap to construct, using farmers' labour under overall technical control to ensure quality of workmanship. They do not require specialist skill for operation and maintenance. Poor design, construction or maintenance can seriously affect the proper functioning of the scheme.
Irrigation development in formal systems takes no account of the existence, in various parts of the world, of large areas of traditional irrigation. These, by definition, have been developed on the initiative of farmers rather than governments, and have continued their existence in the same way. In many cases improved water control can be achieved at comparatively low cost, and is often easily justified by the incremental production that can be achieved as a result.
Thus, given that in some countries the area under traditional irrigation far exceeds the area under formal irrigation, the scope for obtaining increased food production from these systems could be significant. Identifying opportunities for such improvements may therefore be a priority for planners. However, it must also be noted that the most important feature of these systems is local initiative, responsibility and control (FAO 1996).
Box 2. The case of Doni and Batu Degaga irrigation schemesFarmers at Doni and Batu Degaga irrigation schemes have practised very short and zigzagged furrows traditionally according to the slope of their fields that has not been considered during the planning and design of the irrigation schemes. These types of traditional furrow layout enable the farmer to achieve high distribution efficiency along the furrow length (Yusuf 2004). |
Farmers at Doni and Batu Degaga irrigation schemes have practised very short and zigzagged furrows traditionally according to the slope of their fields that has not been considered during the planning and design of the irrigation schemes. These types of traditional furrow layout enable the farmer to achieve high distribution efficiency along the furrow length (Yusuf 2004).
Small-scale irrigation covers a range of technologies to control water from floods, stream-flow, or pumping. Choices regarding irrigation technologies, and the anticipated levels of farm mechanisation, are made when schemes are first designed. And it is clear that these choices affect the management and performance of irrigation schemes (Hasnip 2001).
Common sense dictates that the choice of technology for irrigation should be based on its appropriateness for the cropping patterns intended and should also consider cost-effectiveness. Irrigation engineers have in the past tended to overlook an additional need: for the technology also to be matched to the level of operational capacity of the users. It has become increasingly obvious that the design process must start from a consideration of how the users will operate the system; this should then be designed to provide the optimum combination of efficiency in water use and cost-effective operation and maintenance. Equally important, the designer must consider how the user will manage his land, and the implications that this may have for scheme layout.
On the other hand, irrigation technology needs to be adapted to the specific agro-ecology and a stepwise approach to development is required. For example, high-tech sprinklers seem to be attractive when furrow irrigation might be just as effective. Communities need to be fully engaged in all stages of feasibility studies and design. Farmers need assistance to be able to move from one level to a higher level (they cannot be expected to do it themselves). It is not advisable to start with high-tech approaches especially in places where there was nothing before (Mekuria 2003).
There are many examples where the attempted introduction of new irrigation techniques into existing farming has failed. Farmers must have the means, skill, incentives and support to successfully manage new technologies. Generally, in considering the choice and use of any irrigation technology in general and small-scale schemes in particular, questions that arise are (Hasnip 2001):
A supportive policy and legal environment is crucial to the sustainability of water users' associations. State policies of administrative and financial decentralisation have provided the impetus for many management transfer programmes which diminish the role of the state and expand the role of water users' associations. A facilitating legal framework is critical to give water users' associations the ability to deal effectively with external groups, operate bank accounts and undertake other activities. However, the legal framework should be flexible enough to allow members to adapt their organisations to local circumstances. It should also balance rights with responsibilities for water users' associations to ensure that members have sufficient incentive to participate. Clear assignment of property rights over water and physical infrastructure of irrigation systems to water users' associations can be a potent tool for strengthening the organisations, and should be given greater attention, particularly in programmes which aim to transfer responsibilities and costs of irrigation system management from the state to users (FAO 1996).
Small-scale irrigation development schemes have become popular with government and funding agencies. By comparison with large projects, small schemes potentially involve total capital investment, less time for development and implementation and less complex design. They provide opportunity for participatory development and for orderly devotion for farmers of costs and responsibilities for operation and maintenance. However, many development initiatives have been unsustainable over the long term.
The designer is faced with a larger number of choices concerning aspects of scheme design, construction, operation and maintenance. Necessary decision extends from harder engineering concern such as the type of the intake, to softer choices about the type of distribution best suited to potential irrigators. Designers must consider and fully understand the background of the end users (farmers) through effective participatory planning and implementation process of small-scale irrigation scheme design. Moreover, important issues affecting the management performances and sustainability of the schemes need to be thoroughly investigated prior to their design.
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