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A “Blue Revolution” for African Agriculture?

Synne Movik, Lyla Mehta, Sobona Mtisi and Alan Nicol

1 Introduction further countries in Africa will face water stress2 by The 2005 report from the Commission for Africa 2025 (Shiklomanov and Rodda 2003). rightly notes that agricultural performance is a driver These statistics obscure intra-regional inequalities of poverty trends in the continent. In terms of water in water use and withdrawals as well as the human- for agriculture, the report focuses on the challenges induced aspects of scarcity (Mehta forthcoming). of increasing spending on physical irrigation They are also silent on political questions concerning infrastructure and extending the area under access to and control over water (e.g. water use for irrigation to twice the current coverage agriculture in Southern Africa is very skewed in (Commission for Africa 2005: 73). These are very favour of the land-owning elite, and in eastern and significant issues in their own right, but fall short north-eastern Africa highly charged debates of providing a complete picture on the challenge continue between countries over shared waters). posed by water management problems in Africa. Still, these figures indicate that, given growing The emphasis is largely on creating new competing demands around water from different infrastructure as opposed to looking at the social sectors, the challenge of improving water and institutional aspects of water management, or management for agriculture in the face of variable indeed on enhancing the potential of dryland rainfall, and recurring droughts and floods, must agriculture. Since water plays a key role in enhancing be met on several fronts in order for progress to be both food security and agricultural production, this made towards long-term reliable food security. article asks whether Africa needs a “blue revolution” This overall picture would lead many to agree (cf Lipton 2001) and what this might entail. It does that Africa needs a “blue revolution”. However what so by looking at the broad water resource picture this means is contested. The dominant view has and the links to food security and poverty, before promoted a narrow version, focused on expanding narrowing down its focus to technological irrigation facilities (see e.g. Kay 2001). Clearly, innovation and the accompanying legal, institutional irrigation provides a lot of scope for poverty and policy environment in water management. reduction, enhancing food security and providing security against seasonal vagaries (Lipton et al. 2 The challenges: water and food 2003). Consequently, the Comprehensive Africa security in African agriculture Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), Water is a crucial part of agriculture in Africa, established by the NEPAD (New Economic accounting for some 85 per cent of all usage across Partnership for African Development) Steering the continent, though showing significant regional Committee with support from the Food and variation. Africa’s share of the world’s total water Agriculture Organization (FAO), has made a pledge resources is only 9 per cent, or 4,050 km3 /year (UNEP to increase the cultivated area under “reliable water and AMCEN 2002). In spite of some of the largest, control systems” from 12.6 to 20 million ha, at an most significant watercourses and natural storage estimated cost of US$69bn (NEPAD 2002). The reservoirs in the world, vast tracts of the northern CAADP also calls for huge investments in and southern regions of Africa suffer from acute water agriculture, including some US$37bn in land and stress. Fourteen out of the continent’s 53 countries water investment up to 2015. The plan focuses in are defined as water scarce, 1 and an estimated 11 particular on small-scale irrigation initiatives, noting

IDS Bulletin Vol 36 No 2 June 2005 © Institute of Development Studies

41 Part II Resources and Technologies that just 7 per cent of Africa’s arable area is under The World Bank, a major influence in global water irrigation compared with 33 per cent for Asia. management debates, is re-engaging with large We believe that, while a “blue revolution” for infrastructure projects, arguing that water storage is Africa must certainly include some irrigation a critical issue in helping achieve macro-economic expansion, the irrigation sector is only one of the stability in the many sub-Sahara African countries many answers to enhancing food security and subject to highly variable rainfall regimes. The Bank’s agricultural productivity. An over-reliance on lending for hydropower projects decreased by 90 per irrigation detracts from other important issues such cent over the last decade, largely due to the fact that as food commodity prices. Thus a range of options such projects were viewed as high-risk ventures, must be tackled which include both technological especially concerning social and environmental and informational issues as well as institutional and impacts (World Bank 2003). The Bank’s renewed socio-political considerations that aim to improve promotion of large dams as a “solution” to scarcity the broader environment for investment in and variability is controversial, even stirring The sustainable water resources development. Economist (2004) to decry the “ominous revival” of large-scale infrastructure projects in development. 3 The “blue revolution” and While large dams definitely have enhanced food technology security in South Asia and elsewhere, they have also 3.1 Enhancing water supply, timing, had profound social and environmental impacts which reliability and efficiency include increased evaporation, salinity, waterlogging, According to Johan Rockström of the Stockholm exaggerated economic benefits and most significantly, Environmental Institute ( New Agriculturalist 2004) the forced resettlement of millions as reported by the the answer to improving agricultural water use lies World Commission on Dams in 2002. Although dams not merely in the expansion of “traditional” irrigated often contribute towards increased agricultural agriculture; rather, rain-fed agriculture supplemented productivity for upstream users, gains may be offset by irrigation should be the path to pursue. As it is, by detrimental effects to downstream farmers, non-irrigated agriculture contributes 60 per cent of including reduced silt deposits and changes in flood cereal production on 70 per cent of the global cereal ecosystems. Dams pose a further challenge in sub- area, illustrating its importance relative to irrigated Saharan Africa, where there are a number of major agriculture. Furthermore, enhancing the productivity trans-boundary basins and rivers and some 50 are of rain-fed agriculture has the benefit of improving shared between two or more countries. A renewed the lot of some of the world’s poorest people (IWMI emphasis on large-scale infrastructure projects in the 2004). Hence, solving the water challenge of absence of effective institutions for cooperation may agriculture is not necessarily about providing more increase political disputes between governments. water, but rather providing it at the right time and This is why the World Commission on Dams calls in the right amounts. Employing simple-to-use, for thorough options assessment before any new water inexpensive technologies such as the “bucket and development planning is initiated as well as a thorough drip kit”, treadle pumps, collector well technology assessment of the rights and risks of all stakeholders. and sprinkler irrigation to supplement rain-fed farming might be just what is needed (cf Lovell et al. 3.2 Making plants grow better under 1996). Cropping techniques, such as that developed conditions of water stress for the system for rice intensification (SRI), may hold One of the main aims in terms of using water for much potential (Prasad and Basu 2005). agricultural production is to achieve more with less, Furthermore, effectively utilising Africa’s floodplains or “more crop per drop”. The main point is not to covering an area of some 300,000 km3 is also key. bring more water to the crops, but to make the crops Floodplain agriculture protein yields are almost twice need less water (IWMI 2004), and to reduce overall as high as irrigated agriculture, yet floodplains risk demand within the sector. In addition to the concepts being converted into commercial irrigation schemes, of timing and reliable supply, which can be enhanced even though cost-benefit analyses show that the by early warning and resource monitoring systems, expected profits from such large-scale projects do using the latest satellite and geographic information not merit the costs associated with the construction system technologies, the use of low-cost technologies, of the necessary infrastructure (Marchand 1987). and better agronomic practices such as mulching

42 A “Blue Revolution” for African Agriculture? and zero tilling, spacing and plant management Research in Zimbabwe showed how many systems (such as SRI, see above), breeding through farmers spent a lot of time trying to gain access to conventional or molecular techniques, all hold great the appropriate institution, often resulting in promise for increasing crop productivity, including significant delays in the provision of water for by increasing drought resistance and making plants irrigation, and with adverse impacts on agricultural less water consumptive and more tolerant of crop production (Mtisi and Nicol 2003). Such saline/low-quality water (IWMI 2004). institutions can also provide a focus for struggles for political control between water users. In Budzi 4 Institutional complexity and and the then Lower Save sub-catchment councils, socio-political processes many commercial farmers viewed the access and Whether projects are large or small, technologies use of water by small-scale, communal, and newly simple or sophisticated, attention towards scale resettled farmers as leading to ‘massive land and sophistication should not distract from critical degradation, siltation and disappearance of rivers’. issues of institutional process and local, national, This effectively put the agricultural concerns of these and regional socio-political relations. This is farmers and ways of benefiting from water reforms particularly true for countries such as South Africa, off the agenda of institutions of water management, Zimbabwe and Tanzania where the role of the state and ensured that water management was locked has been key in reforming the water sector and into wider debates on land reform and land use. providing a conducive and enabling policy Policy environments in African agriculture are not environment for the uptake of new technologies historically neutral, and policies must take account and practices, as well as for coordinated and of different conceptions of resource ownership and sustainable management of water for national rights regimes at a local level to stand a chance of agricultural growth and poverty reduction. success. To ignore the local picture is to run the risk However, the principles underpinning reforms also of failure, or, worse still, to introduce new bases for draw either implicitly or explicitly on new conflict between different users. development paradigms that have become entrenched within global water debates. We 4.2 Water as an economic good? highlight some of the key policy narratives below Since the 1990s a paradigm shift in global discourses and discuss their implications. on water management has been the conceptualisation of water as an economic good 4.1 Integrated water resource management (Gonzalez-Villarreal and Solanes 1999, Mehta At the heart of water sector reforms is integrated 2003). The premise is that paying for water will water resources management, which emphasises induce effective and efficient ways of water decentralisation of management, stakeholder management among users. In many African participation, and the principle of “user pays”. Its countries these ideas are now embedded in policy uncritical adoption in many African countries has processes that are at implementation stage. been problematic. For example, new institutions The idea recognises the need to emphasise demand of water management may not adequately address management rather than relying on augmenting agricultural concerns of the region, particularly not supply. But while this may help to conserve supplies, among small-scale and communal farmers. This is pricing has so far failed to adequately cross-subsidise partly due to the institutional complexity that the technological innovation to the benefit of the poor water reforms entail, and local struggles for control water users. In practice, it is also difficult to implement of decentralised institutions of water management. since it runs parallel to the political promises of many In Zimbabwe and South Africa, new institutions of Southern African governments to their respective water management are intended to provide an easy electorate, and to the expectations of poor farmers and locally accessible route to water for small-scale who may neither be willing or able to pay for water users as well as large-scale commercial farmers. for agricultural use. Thus, they are institutional fora for representation The notion that water is an economic good is still and participation, as well as sources of information very controversial in the developing world and there for water issues, but frequently a part of an ever- are many who believe that water should not be more complex institutional environment. viewed as a commodity but instead should be seen

43 Part II Resources and Technologies as a human right (South Africa’s free basic water reforms are implemented in a context of structural policy is a step in this direction – it is the only country inequities of ownership and access to land. One of that recognises that right to water in its constitution). the chief problems in water and agriculture debates Still, rights-based approaches to water are often in Africa is paradoxically, perhaps, the intense focus hindered by parallel attempts to recover costs, which on the resource base itself and the lack of attention are in keeping with international donor discourses paid to the institutional environment in which small (Mehta and Ntshona 2004). Moreover, the free basic farmers make decisions on production patterns, water policy is largely restricted to domestic water investment opportunities and whether or not to and has been criticised for not paying attention to leave the sector altogether and shift to urban the needs of subsistence farmers who could use basic livelihoods. If sustainable improvements to the water water to meet their food and livelihood needs. environment of African agriculture are to take place Their interests are ostensibly addressed through then they have to begin with an institutional South Africa’s National Water Act 1998 where environment that can adopt and assist farmers in emphasis is placed on crafting institutional utilising new technologies, in achieving access to frameworks, whereby water users are issued with credit and markets and, crucially, interpreting the formal water rights in the form of temporal licences. meaning of new policy directions at a local level. As in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, the logic is that paying for water rights will induce more judicious 5 Conclusion water management among water users, and that Does Africa need a “blue revolution”? This article having a registered, formal right will increase has argued that appropriate water management can security, which in turn could lead to farmers both enhance food security and agricultural use and investing in new technologies to improve efficiency. productivity. Thus a “blue revolution” could shake However, it is not necessarily the case that the up African agriculture. However, this “blue implementation of formal rights is the answer to revolution” cannot merely be restricted to expanding improving efficiency of water use in agriculture. Africa’s irrigation potential or solely endorsing global Research being undertaken by the Natural Resources policy narratives around integrated water resource Institute, in collaboration with the International management or “user pays” principles without taking Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sokoine into consideration the diversity of Africa’s socio- University, and the University of Zimbabwe is political make-up. This should be reflected in the unveiling the difficulties relating to the existence emergence of locally appropriate institutions that of legal pluralism in water law, and its consequences are capable of delivering assistance to African farmers. for efficient water use (Van Koppen et al. 2004). African agriculture needs a “blue revolution” that meets the principles of equity and sustainability, 4.3 Participation and stakeholder which draws on technologies that are locally involvement appropriate and affordable, and that also prioritises The water reforms seek to actively promote the dryland systems since this is where the bulk of food development of small-scale and commercial is produced for Africa’s poor people. Moreover, the agriculture. However, the reality is that water reform “blue revolution” must shy away from glib has not, in practice, opened up access of water to endorsements of global policy narratives that are new stakeholders. If the water reforms are to lead often blind to local institutional complexity and to significant agricultural development among small- historical legacies of unequal access and control. The scale and communal farmers, the reforms have to Commission for Africa and its supporters would do confront and take cognisance of the historical legacies well, therefore, to take forward the policy discourse that define much of Southern Africa, particularly in at a local level and to build on the experience of recent Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, where the water policy reform processes within sub-Saharan legal and administrative frameworks governing Africa. Without the local knowledge and experience ownership, access, control and use of water favoured to assess the impact of new reforms, the future pattern elite – often racially defined – interests (Mtisi and of policy development in Africa’s water sector may Nicol 2003). With such skewed access typifying remove rather than provide a basis for water to play past arrangements, recent water reforms hold little a substantial role in enhancing African food security promise for African agriculture, particularly if the and long-term poverty reduction.

44 A “Blue Revolution” for African Agriculture?

Notes 1. Commonly defined as having less than 1,000 cubic metres per person per year. 2. Defined as having less than 1,700 cubic metres per person per year.

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