Report of GARD Consultancy Study of Water-Controlled Rice Production in The Gambia Christine Elias July, 1987 STUDY OF WATER-CONTROLLED RICE PRODUCTION IN THE GAMBIA by Christine Elias In collaboration with Soil and Water Management Unit GTZ/DWR Rainfed Rice Improvement Project Freedom From Hunger Campaign Jahaly-Pacharr Project July 1987 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements i Executive Summary ii 1. RATIONALE FOR STUDY 1 2. PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS 2 2.1 Soil and Water Management Unit (SWMU) 2 2.2 GTZ/DWR Rainfed Rice Improvement 7 2.3 Freedom From Hunger Campaign (FFHC) 10 2.4 Jahaly-Pacharr Tidal Irrigation Component 15 3. STUDY METHODOLOGY 22 4. CASE STUDY VILLAGES 24 5. FACTORS AFFECTING PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AND OUTCOME IN CASE-STUDY VILLAGES 27 5.1 SWI1U Case Study Villages 27 5.2 GTZ/DWR Case Study Villages 31 5.3 FFHC Case Study Village 35 5.4 Jahaly-Pacharr C:.se Study Village 36 6. ECONOMIC ANALYSES 37 6.1 Estimation of Project Costs 38 6.2 Estimation of Project Benefits and Incremental Costs of Rice Production 42 6.3 Project Returns and Sensitivity Analysis 44 6.4 Results of the Economic Analyses 45 7. COLLECTIVE PROJECT EXPERIENCES 50 7.1 Environmental Factors 51 7.2 Design Factors of Water-control Interventions 52 7.3 Issues of Land Use and Land Tenure 55 7.4 Village Participation 57 7.5 Compatibility of Intervention with Existing Farming System 58 7.6 Economic Factors 60 8. IMPLICATIONS FOR RICE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GAMBIA 60 9. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FOLLOW-UP TO THIS STUDY 63 ANNEXES A. SWMU Case Study Villages - Beeta and Sintet B. GTZ/DWR Case Study Villages - Bulock and Bwiam C. FFHC Case Study Village - Dankunku D. Jahaly-Pacharr Case Study Village - Faraba E. Rice Production Ecologies in The Gambia F. Calculations and Assumptions for Economic Analyses ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report is the collective work of many individuals. It would be impossible to list all who were involved throughout the course of the s:udy, but I hope all will accept my sincere thanks. I would, however, like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of some particular individuals and organizatins. First and foremost, I wish to thank the people of Bulock, Bwian, Dobong, Beeta, Sintet, Dankunku, and Faraba for their kindness in tolerating our endless questioning. In addition, I wish to thank Falankoi Janneh and Musa Suso, the data collection supervisors; Amadou Bojang, Glenn Langan, Kittim Yaffa, Susan Gannon, Essa Colley, Abdoulie Fatty, and Saikou Njie, the field enumerators; the SWI'1U and GTZ survey teams, who measured all the case-study crop fields; Patricia O'Neil and !omodou Konteh who computerized and managed the resource allocation data; Glenn Langan, for carrying out the computer analyses; Petra Mueller-Glodde and Duncan Boughton for preparing the economic analyses; the staffs of the SW1U, GTZ, FFHC, and Jahaly-Pacharr Projects for providing the information needed for this study; and, the rinistry of Water Resources and the GARD Project for sponsoring the study. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Government of The Gambia gives high priority to the goal of increasing rice production. Considerable resources have been invested in developing the nation's rice growing potential, a task which is complicated by the diversity of rice growing ecologies in The Gambia. To date, the bulk of rice development resources have been devoted to exploiting the potential for pump-irrigation. Concerning the existing small-scale perimeters, technical problems such as poor drainage, inefficient canal systems, and mismatched pump and engine units, have kept yields below expected levels. Problems related to input distribution and system maintenance have also proved difficult to solve. The Jahaly-Pacharr pump-irrigation scheme has produced very good yields and has yet to experience the technical difficulties mentioned above. However, the project was designed as a pilot scheme for pump irrigation after completion of the proposed bridge-barrage at Balingo. Until this barrage is constructed, more schemes like Jahaly-Pacharr cannot be developed because the additional extraction of river water would push the salt interface further east, thus contaminating productive rice land. Although the potential for rehabilitating the existing small-scale perimeters should not be overlooked, the potential for expanding pump-irrigation is clearly limited in the absence of the barrage. Furthermore, it must be stressed that for much of the country, pump-irrigation is not an option. For most Gambian farmers, rainfed and/or tidal lands are the only choices available for cultivating rice. In light of these facts, it is necessary to examine the potential for developing the rainfed and tidal rice ecologies using non-pump alternatives to rice land development. These areas form the vast majority of The Gambia's rice land and are the areas which show the most potential for productive exploitation in the short- and medium-terms. In recent years, a number of pilot schemes have been launched to investigate tile possibilities of exploiting the rainfed and tidal rice ecologies of The Gambia. These projects and their collective experiences are the subject of this study. Specifically, the study examined the range of local experiences with non-pump water-controlled rice production to date and defined the critical factors which have affected project development and outcome. With this insight, planners can draw on the valuable experience of ongoing projects in their efforts to diversify the rice development sector. Four ongoing rice development projects have been field-testing different non-pump technical designs for 2 to 5 years in The Gambia. Their development strategies and the ecologies within which they work are summarized below: ii * Soil and Water Management Unit (Department of Agriculture)-­ construction of water retention and anti-salinity dikes for improved water control in the transitional and rainfed rice-growing areas. * GTZ (Department of Water Resources)--construction of anti-salinity dikes and contour bunding for improved water control in the transitional and rainfed rice-growing areas. * Freedom From Hunger Campaign--construction of bridges, causeways, and footpaths to improve access for rice farmers to the tidal swanmps. * Jahaly-Pacharr Project--construction of canals, dikes, and gates and improvement of natural waterways for improved water control in freshwater tidal swamps. Given the overall objective of the study -- to ,examine The Gambia's collective experience with improved rice production technologies and to determine the implications of this experience for future rice development projects -- it was important to review the project activities in the village setting. Because of the diversity of project activities and the complexity of linkages between the projects, participating villages, and individual farm families, a case-study approach was chosen as the most appropriate for the study. In collaboration with these four projects, case study villages were selected which represented the whole range of experiences with both technical designs and implementation approaches in different rice-growing ecologies. A two-tiered case study was adopted which combined informal survey work at the village level and the collection of detailed resource allocation data at the household level. The results of this fielk work are summarized in the main report and are presented in more detail in Annexes A through D. The case study analyses defined the conditions--socioeconomic and environmental--present in the various case study villages which contributed to the success or failure of the project interventions. These conditions are discussed on a case by case basis in Section 5. An economic analysis of each project is given in Section 6. In Section 7, lessons learned from individual sites are brought together and considered as collective project experience of the ongoing water control/riceland improvement programs. These critical factors which determined the outcome of these projects are summarized below: Environmental Factors These are arguably the most important factors because they are in varying degrees beyond the control of the respective projects. Furthermore, the stochastic nature of these critical factors had far-reaching implications for the strategies projects and farmers used in coping with risk. The critical factors in this category are: iii * Rainfall variability. * Siltation. * Soil quality. * Saline intrusion in tida; rice-growing areas. * Unpredictable river levels. Design Factors of Water-Control Interventions The design factors are rooted in the original project objectives and are based on assumptions made on several key design elements. The report describes the implications of each of the following factors for technical design: * Tolerable levels of risk. * Construction resources. Management feasibility. * Project costs. Issues of land use and land tenure The case studies highlighted the fundamental impacts which the traditional tenure and use patterns of village rice lands have on project outcome. The following factors emerged as most critical: * Underutilization of improved land. * Shifting land use of improved rice lands. * Implications of village participation in construction. Village Participation The projects differ in their requirements for village participation in rice land development. The key factors in this category are: * Food-for-work and cash incentives. * Influence of village leadership. Compatibility of intervention and existing farming system Two critical factors arose