• • I SSN No. 1012~988X Farmer Managed Imgatlon Systems Newsletter

No.5 International Irrigation Management Institute November 1988

• Flocu:1 W"a.ter Irriga.tior. ir. .

Millions of people living along the lower Tana River in Kenya). Africa's major rivers practice a type These systems are tremendously of irrigation reqUlrmg little in the unsuccessful. Why? Because the farm way of physical infr~Hlt.ructure, depen­ ineentives in terms of prices could not ding upon the seasonal rise and fall of compare with wage labor. A signi­ flood waters. A recent visitor to IIMI, ficant number of the manpower is Dr. Thayer Scudder, talked about the away working as labor migrants. potential of this type of irrigation in Africa's agricultural deVelopment. Dr. Scudder is pt'oCessor of Anthropology at the CaliforfJ ja Institute of Technology, and is an associate director of the Ir. This Iss~e Institute for Development Anthropology in the United States. Flood Water Irrigation in "To give you just one example of Africa l' the importance of flood water irriga­ tion, in Nigeria the latest assessment Editor's Corner 5 is that there are approximately 800,000 hectares under flood water agriculture, Strengthening Water Users' and the potential is estimated at Associations in 7 another 1.2 million hectares which could be put under flood water Farmer-Agency Meetings in agriculture. This is obviously one 9 reason why flood water agriculture is important. It's there and there are a I Research on Large-Scale FMIS 10 large number of people who are practicing it. Non-conventional Technology 12

Flood water agriculture is demand Announcements 13 driven; the incentive to practice it Gomes from the producing household, Country Notes 14 and I think this is of tremendous importance. During the recent drought Reports & Papers 16 (not just the classic drought beginning in 1968 in the Sahel and goil'lg up to FMIS Rehabilitation: A the 1970s but the more recent drought Moroccan Perspective 17 of 1981-84 which "str'etched across to KeQya), a", l

2 But the nature of the regime is also them· distributed along every major absolutely essential to tbe existing river in Africa but I don't know that . systems of producti6n. for a fact because so little research has been done on this topic. In Nigeria alone, there are well over 10 million people dependant on Flood water agriculture is part of a the annual flooding of the Niger River. much more complex and dynamic Unfortunately, river basin development system which involves (in order of in Africa has largely ignored the importance): rain-fed agriculture, wage populations within the river basin. labor, then flood water agriculture, fishing, livestock, a wide range of There are at least three reasons small scale commercial activities, that river basin agriculturalists have gathering, and hunting. The same been overlooked. First of all, the population may be practicing all of rural-urban terms of trade throughout these various components, and shifting Africa are highly unfavorable to farm the emphasis depending on environ­ , producers. The production costs of mental conditions from one year to government-sponsored projects in Mali, another. There is also ethnic for example, exceed the price that the specialization to some extent; some government pays the producer. Now groups focus more on fishing or that's an extreme example, but herding or agriculture. indicative of a general problem. And I don't really see much future for Over the millenia, these people agriculture in Africa until basic have domesticated their own species; structural policy changes occur. for example, African floating rice was domesticated in West Africa over two The second reason that river basin thousand years ago. . So you've got agriculture has been overlooked is that floating rice which is cultivated on Africa has about 30% 40% of the the rising flood, and then there are world's hydro-electric potential. another group of cultigens that have Rivers are seen primarily as least cost been adapted for receding flood solutions to the energy problem. Dam conditions. construction has been primarily for hydro-electric power rather than the Now let me just briefly divide flood integrated developmen't of the river water irrigation int.o three categories basin. of which the most important is flood water recession. In all these rivers And a third reason why African that I'm talking about, people plant a river basins have not been emphasized series of crops on the receding flood in terms of integrated development is as the water goes down. It may be the general perception of them as riverine, along the banks of the "hostile" habitats with irregular primary channel, or on extensive flood flooding, and ridden with di!;Jease. They plains if they exist. Then there is a are difficult places to live, of course, much more limited distribution of but they also support millions of flood rise irrigation, and this is where people. the floating rice is used. Flood rise irrigation is pretty much restricted to Systems of Flood Water Irrigation West Africa. In Kenya and perhaps in Tanzania, there is a somewhat Now let's look at some of these different version wlrich I've just :systems of flood water irrigation. As mentioned where, when the flood is far as distribution is concerned, they coming down,. the tides are used to are found throughout sub-Saharan force fresh water into the paddies. Africa. My guess is that you find Then there is a third and very compli­

3 cated system,. which virtually no one You would know how many hectares has written about, and that is tidal could be irrigated in a given year, irrigation in mangrove swamps. depending on the amount of water stored behind the dam. So you could , Impact of River Basin Development flood specified areas. Research by I FAO suggests that with improved The impact of river basin develop­ water management (which the con­ m'3nt on flood water irrigated agricul­ trolled flood would help provide), and ture has so far been negative, because use of fairly simple improved techni­ the emphasis has been on dams for ques and varieties, yields could be hydropower. The dams have been used increased by a factor of three. Since to regularize, to eliminate the annual yields under flood water irrigation are flood. The result of that, of course, is currently quite low (about one half to that the productivity of these indi­ one ton per hectare for rice), this genous systems is very seriously approach could bring it up to about adversely affected. Not only flood one and a half to three tons per agriculture, but fishing and herding hectare. have badly hit. If you wipe out the annual flood, you literally wipe out the At the same time, this controlled grazing potential in these areas. annual flood would provide grazing, and maintain fisheries productivity. In That's the background; what can other words, the controlled flood we do about this? There's a very would be a boon to the entire riverine strong "anti-dam" movement, of production system. In Senegal, for course, as voiced by the journal, The example, there are half a million Ecologist. They want to stop all large people who, prior to the drought, were dam construction, which is a very dependent on the annual flood. That strong viewpoint in the environmental number is significantly less now, movement. The approach I want to because they have gone off as labor suggest would be the development of migrants to various places. But recent the uniquely African type of irrigation research suggests that they would which would involve millions of people come back. and millions of hectares, and it would be relatively low cost. And it would Along with the controlled flood work very simply. would be a controlled draw-down: in the reservoir, where the local popula­ Controlled Floods for Irrigation tion is practicing flood recession agriculture. This draw-down area According to my proposed scenario, could also be of tremendous impor­ you have to have water management, tance in grazing, if properly syn­ so you need tributary and main stream chronized with downstream releases. dams. The major purpose of the dams would continue to be hydropOWer The first experiment which is production, because that has to pay the possible to test thiA idea is about to bills. Let's say that 75% of the water start on the Senegal River where the is passed through the turbines. I'm Manantali and the Diama dams have thinking now of the Manantali dam on recently been constructed. Donor the Senegal River. The other 25% of money was available for thQ dams, but the water would be used for controlled no donor came up with money for the down-river floods. turbines. The governments have agreed that until the turbines are The flood would be released on a installed (and the first one is antici­ given date; farmers would be alerted pated to be operational in 1993), there two or three months ahead of time. will be a -controlled down river flood

4 for a mInimUm of 50,000 hectares in EcI:it.<>r's Cc::>r:r.er••• Senegal and Mauritania.

The Institute for Development This issue of the FMIS Newsletter Anthropology (IDA) has recently been features a type of irrigation -- flood awarded a contract from USAID to water which some might not monitor the use of this flood by the consider irrigation at all. The unusual local population. We will utilize SPOT forms of irrigated agriculture found imagery and aerial video imagery to under farmer management point to a find out exactly what areas are flooded problem which this Newsletter seeks to at maximum flooding, what areas are address: FMISs often remain unrecog­ cultivated at maximum cultivation, and nized, and unappraciated as an econo­ then go into the reasons why there is mic resource. Development planners not a closer correspondence; there wUl can easily miss opportunities for certainly be labor and various other increasing agricultural production constraints. Hopefully, there will also through relatively modest inputs to the be studies by environmentalists and by FMIS sector, simply because the engineers, of ways to enhance the flood resources of cultivation knowledge and utiJization. organizational and physical infra­ structure are not viewed as significant I think there is a tremendous agricultural assets. potential of using high technology-­ these big dams; Africa· eannot afford As Thayer Scudder notes in his to not manage these rivers. The . discussion, "home-grown" agricultural combination of regUlated floods for strategies based on new approaches r'eeession agriculture, and then the (e.g., pump irrigation) can be more development of village irrigation economical, productive, and sustainable projeds (or federations of them) can than new projects planned by outside . enhance and build upon the strengths agencies. Scudder takes this aame of millions of farmers whose production principle -- blending existing irrigation systems ut the moment are being stJ'H:ltegies with new technological f~Iiminated by dam construetion. ~pp:>itunities to suggest a con­ trolled flood for irrigating Africa's For more information contact: river basins. The flood waters would be released on schedule from dams, Dr. Thayer Scudder thus mimicking nature without the risk Institute for Development of relying on natural floods. Anthropology 99 Collier street Two articles discuss the potential P.O. Box 2207 role of formal water users' asso­ Binghamton, NY 13902 ciations (WUAs) for managing irriga­ USA. tion systems. Strengthening water users' associations in Indonesia describes a government program to turn over responsibility from govern­ ment agencies to farmers, or at least to clarify what are the responsibilities of farmers for O&M. Lift irrigation cooperative societies in a tribal area of Gujarat state, , were initiated through a private foundation. The effed is fundionally similar to the Indonesian case: a formal organization of farmers becomes responsible for

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