On-Farm Irrigation Development Project in the Old Lands (OFIDO)

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On-Farm Irrigation Development Project in the Old Lands (OFIDO) On-farm Irrigation Development in the Old Lands (OFIDO) Technical assessment FINAL REPORT The Government of Egypt is highly committed to enhancing food security and On-farm Irrigation developing the country’s agricultural sector through the sustainable management of its natural resources and the active improvement of its institutional capacities. The national “Poverty reduction and agriculture and rural development strategy” well aligns with this Development objective by calling for the promotion of a more ecient and market-oriented agriculture and optimal use of land and water resources. in the Old Lands The Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR), in line with the national Strategy, implemented the On-farm Irrigation Development in the Old-Lands project (OFIDO) (OFIDO), an agribusiness development programme funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Fund (IFAD), with the aim to improve the livelihoods of rural poor living in selected command areas in lower, middle and upper Egypt. Technical assessment In order to evaluate and dene future investment strategies and policies for the implementation of successful interventions in agricultural water management, the Government of Egypt entrusted the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to conduct an independent technical assessment and provide a comprehensive overview of the performance of improved irrigation systems in three governorates in the project area of intervention. The technical assessment was carried out in two main complementary phases which allowed a thorough evaluation of both the technical and the economic components of the OFIDO project. The results of the overall analysis provide recommendations to the Government of Egypt to further exploit the benets of its program of modernizing on-farm irrigation over a ve million feddan area and to determine how to improve the eciency and eectiveness of future similar agricultural water management investments. ISBN 978-92-5-133119-4 FINAL REPORT 9 789251 331 194 CB0484EN/1/08.20 On-farm Irrigation Development in the Old Lands (OFIDO) Technical assessment FINAL REPORT By Maher Salman, Senior Land and Water Officer, FAO Eva Pek, Stefania Giusti, Fethi Lebdi, Alwajd Almerei, and Nirman Shrestha, FAO International Consultants Ibrahim El-Desouky, Saad Zaki, and Reda Darwesh, FAO National Consultants Nicola Lamaddalena, CIHEAM IAMB, Italy Dirk Raes, KU Leuven, Belgium FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Rome, 2020 Required citation: Salman, M, Pek, E., Giusti, S., Lebdi, F., Almerei, A., Shrestha, N., El-Desouky, I., Zaki, S., Darwesh, R., Lamaddalena, N. and Raes, D. 2020. On-farm Irrigation Development Project in the Old Lands – Technical assessment – Final report. Rome. FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb0484en The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of FAO. ISBN 978-92-5-133119-4 © FAO, 2020 Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- sa/3.0/igo/legalcode). Under the terms of this licence, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO logo is not permitted. If the work is adapted, then it must be licensed under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If a translation of this work is created, it must include the following disclaimer along with the required citation: “This translation was not created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original [Language] edition shall be the authoritative edition.” Disputes arising under the licence that cannot be settled amicably will be resolved by mediation and arbitration as described in Article 8 of the licence except as otherwise provided herein. The applicable mediation rules will be the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/mediation/rules and any arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Third-party materials. Users wishing to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, are responsible for determining whether permission is needed for that reuse and for obtaining permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party- owned component in the work rests solely with the user. Sales, rights and licensing. FAO information products are available on the FAO website (www.fao.org/publications) and can be purchased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/licence-request. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected]. Cover photographs: ©FAO/Eva Pek iii Contents Acknowledgements xii Acronyms and abbreviations xiii CHAPTER 1: TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW 1 Technical assessment overview 3 Motivation and scope 3 Assessment structure 4 Sampling 4 CHAPTER 2. TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT 9 Water productivity 11 Introduction and methodology 11 Findings 16 Conclusions 25 Pressure test 29 Introduction and methodology 29 Findings 30 Conclusions 31 Flow measurements 33 Introduction and methodology 33 Findings 34 Conclusions 38 Rapid Appraisal Procedure (RAP) 41 Introduction and methodology 41 iv Findings 51 Conclusions 65 Field observations 71 Introduction and methodology 71 Findings 71 Conclusions 76 Modelling 79 Introduction and methodology 79 Findings 81 Conclusions 84 CHAPTER 3. FARM-LEVEL GAINS – COST ANALYSIS 87 Farm-level land gain 89 Introduction and methodology 89 Findings 91 Conclusions 95 Farm-level cost-benefit analysis 97 Introduction and methodology 97 Findings 97 Conclusions 109 Return of investment 113 Introduction and methodology 113 Findings 114 Conclusions 117 v CHAPTER 4. SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCLUSIONS AND 119 RECOMMENDATIONS Assessment of water productivity 121 Appraisal of system performance - pressure test 123 Appraisal of system performance - flow measurement 125 Appraisal of system performance - Rapid Appraisal Procedure 127 Appraisal of system performance - field observations 131 Appraisal of system performance - Hydraulic Modelling 133 Farm-level land gain evaluation 135 Farm-level cost-benefit analysis 137 Return of investmen evaluation 139 vi Figures Figure 1: The project command area 3 Figure 2: Correlation between number of hydrants and total lengths of 6 marwa in the sample of Kafr el-Sheikh Figure 3: Density estimate of the supplied area size in Assuit 6 Figure 4: Mesqa with groundwater connection in Sohag 7 Figure 5: Mean monthly climatic data (mean monthly ETo and mean 12 monthly max and min temperature) Figure 6: Relative biomass production at soil salinity levels for crops 14 irrigated with canal or drainage/well water Figure 7: Overview of the AquaCrop simulation runs including the 17 simulation mechanism of input requirement, process, and output indicators Figure 8: Pressure test of marwa 29 Figure 9: Flow measurement in marwas with Turbo Drive Water Flow Meter 33 Figure 10: Turbo drive water flow meter 34 Figure 11: Non-improved earth marwa and measurement procedures 34 of flow rate Figure 12: RAP conceptual framework (adapted from Facon, 2006) 42 Figure 13: Estimated soil water balance in sorghum yield (produced with SURDEV software, University of Wageningen) 45 Figure 14: Annual water balance of El Hammam No 2 52 Figure 15: Annual water balance of Arab Motier No 8 52 Figure 16: Annual water balance of El Meana No 8 52 Figure 17: Annual water balance of El Meana No 9 53 Figure 18: Annual water balance of Al Nahia No 3 53 vii Figure 19: Annual water balance of Al Shagara No 3 53 Figure 20: Annual water balance of Al Farah No 7 54 Figure 21: Annual water balance of El-Houd Al-Westany 54 Figure 22: Annual water balance of Marc El Gamal No 8 54 Figure 23: Annual water balance of El Bashier No 14 55 Figure 24: Annual water balance of El Mohiet No 5 55 Figure 25: Annual water balance of Al-Bayoumy and Hendawy, Al Zawia 55 Figure 26: Density of the implementation of organizational variables 57 at different stakeholder level Figure 27: Density of the implementation of water distribution variables 58 at different stakeholder level Figure 28: Density of the implementation of operation variables at 59 different stakeholder level Figure 29: Density of the implementation of maintenance variables at 60 different stakeholder level Figure 30: Radar chart of achieved scores of performance
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