Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Marianne Gadeberg

Multi-stakeholder dialogue on farmers’ access to credit for irrigation in Ghana

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Ensuring that smallholder farmers have access to credit or other financing products is an essential requirement for expanding the use of small scale irrigation. However, lenders are often hesitant to develop products for smallholder farmers, and frontier markets imply risks that make financiers and equipment suppliers reluctant. Therefore, lack of access to finance has emerged as a key barrier to sustainable expansion of small scale irrigation.

To find solutions, stakeholders from the irrigation sector in Ghana came together for a virtual meeting on August 27, 2020. They discussed how to make more financing products available to farmers, who are increasingly leading investments in irrigation and other water management solutions.

A space for dialogue and collaboration

The meeting was the second congregation of the Small Scale Irrigation Dialogue Space, which was established in 2019 by the Feed the Future Innovation Laboratory for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). The space is envisioned as a unique strategy for bringing stakeholders together to encourage collective thinking across sectors and explore new opportunities for expanding small scale irrigation.

On this occasion, the 45 meeting participants—representing government agencies, private sector companies, farmer organizations, financial institutions, and more— shared insights into challenges and opportunities in financing irrigation to benefit smallholder farmers, gender equity, and youth. They also discussed emerging innovative financing solutions to enable farmer-led irrigation investments.

A new partnership

The private sector plays a crucial role in overcoming market and financing barriers to expanding small scale irrigation. Acknowledging this dependency, ILSSI and partners have made concerted efforts to include private sector actors in dialogue discussions, and have most recently awarded its first catalyst grant to a private sector partner: PEG Africa.

PEG Africa works to bring solar power to West Africa, through distributing solar-power systems that provide for households’ energy needs. The company has a unique consumer financing pay-as-you-go system, offering farmers the option to make a minimum deposit and spread the rest of their payment over a productive period of 18 months. PEG Africa also runs a very rigorous credit assessment system, which considers the business case and water resources for each individual farmer.

With the grant, ILSSI and PEG Africa will collaborate on investigating business cases that are workable for farmers looking to access finance for irrigation. One objective will be to customize PEG’s pay-as-you-go system to solar-powered irrigation.

Recommendations to take forward

Participants in the dialogue meeting synthesized several key messages from their discussions, as summarized in the event report. First, the report says, expanding small scale irrigation requires expanding the whole ecosystem that surrounds the practice, including financing, policies, input and output markets, and more.

Second, enabling farmers to invest in irrigation, a single technology or financing solution, is inadequate—farmers’ interest in leading small scale irrigation investments must be supported throughout the whole value chain. Such support could include bundling credit with technologies, after-sale services, agronomic extension, input and output market access, and insurance services.

Third, financing solutions for smallholder famers are still missing. Many irrigation technologies and financing solutions need to be tailored to the local context and smallholder farmers’ conditions. Finally, strategic partnerships are valuable as multiple partners, such as relevant government, research, financial, insurance, and farmer organizations, can all contribute to ensuring farmers’ credibility when it comes to accessing credit.

ILSSI and its partners are continuing to champion the Small Scale Irrigation Dialogue Space in pursuit of expanding small scale irrigation in West and East Africa. Another  multi-stakeholder meeting, focused on financing solutions for sustainable and inclusive farmer-led irrigation scaling, took place in Ethiopia on September 23, 2020, and more events are planned for the coming months.

Read the report: Small scale irrigation dialogue space: Partnerships and financing solutions for sustainable and inclusive farmer-led irrigation scaling in Ghana

ILSSI and Texas A & M celebrated ten years of Feed the Future Innovation Labs

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Ten years’ worth of effort to end hunger and eliminate poverty were celebrated when Texas A & M AgriLife hosted a virtual get-together on September 17, 2020.

A virtual U. S. Congressional event, titled Cultivating Hope – Innovation Beyond the Decade, marked the tenth anniversary of the Feed the Future Innovation Labs. The Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) is one of those programs. ILSSI, hosted by Texas A & M Agrilife, is part of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture.

This event recognized the latest U.S. university-led agricultural research and innovation, celebrated a decade of Feed the Future, and reflected on what lies ahead in the fight to end global hunger.

The event highlighted support from members of the U.S. Congress for international agricultural research and recognized champions through awards for Representative Kay Granger and Representative Nita Lowey.

The event’s keynote speaker was Julie Borlaug, vice president of external relations at Inari and granddaughter to Norman Borlaug. She emphasized the need to deliver research innovations to farmers.

Julie Borlaug, vice president of external relations at Inari.

A decade ago, Feed the Future was born out of a global food crisis. This U.S. Agency for International Development initiative set out to use science and innovation to solve the global challenges of producing food to meet rising demand, improving nutrition, and supporting those who rely on agriculture for a living to be more resilient.

Feed the Future established a network of twenty-four Innovation Labs, partnerships that involve more than 70 U.S. universities and colleges. Working directly with partner countries, the initiative has supported more than 23 million people to exit poverty and ensured that more than 5 million families achieved food security.

Today, as pandemics and other threats have persistent negative repercussions for rising global hunger, the Innovation Labs continue to play an ever more important role in building resilience and supporting food security.

Tapping into the potential for vegetable seed production in Mali

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by Pepijn Schreinemachers, World Vegetable Center

Vegetable consumption is generally low in sub-Saharan Africa, a factor that affects the health of many Africans. Raising vegetable consumption will benefit the health of consumers, but could also boost the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Today, many farmers in Mali produce staple crops, even though producing vegetables is generally more profitable. Yet, vegetable production faces many constraints, including limited access to water as well as poor quality and unavailability of vegetable seeds.

 Against this background, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) is partnering with the World Vegetable Center in Mali to develop a more reliable supply of vegetable seeds and promote the use of efficient irrigation methods.

Opportunities for growth

In Mali, the formal vegetable seed sector consists of local seed companies, foreign companies, and farmer cooperatives. Most seed companies have vegetables in their portfolio, but local breeding programs are mostly nonexistent. Seeds of economically important vegetables, such as onion, tomato, and chili pepper, are mostly acquired through imports, but imported varieties are not adapted to local growing conditions.

Certified onion seed production in Mali supported by World Vegetable Center. Photo: World Vegetable Center.

Seeds of traditional vegetables, such as African eggplant, okra, and jute mallow, are mostly produced by farmers themselves and distributed through informal channels. We are collaborating to assess opportunities for stimulating local vegetable seed production and improve seed quality of both exotic and traditional vegetables.

What’s more, lack of water appears to be a key constraint to seed production in Mali. However, the high value of vegetable seed is expected to make it more economical for farmers to invest in irrigation. We are therefore also investigating if improved irrigation methods, combined with capacity building in vegetable seed production and marketing, could contribute to strengthening local vegetable seed production and thereby create a more reliable supply of affordable vegetable seed.

Getting together to get started

Our joint project got started with an inception workshop held at the World Vegetable Center’s Regional Center for West and Central Africa – Dry Regions on July 2, 2020. The number of workshop participants was restricted in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We brought together 16 key actors from the vegetable seed sector, including researchers and representatives of seed cooperatives and seed companies.

Key actors from the seed production sector in Mali were brought together for a workshop in July, 2020. Photo: World Vegetable Center.

Dr. Siaka Dembélé, seed consultant hired by World Vegetable Center, and Dr. Kabirou Ndiaye, Regional Director, chaired the meeting. The workshop provided an opportunity to discuss the constraints faced by the vegetable seed sector in Mali, and allowed local actors to comment on the study plan and improve the proposed survey tools.

Participants particularly emphasized the high production costs of irrigated vegetable seed and the unavailability of first-generation seed. The workshop participants also recommended that the study account for the important role of farmer cooperatives in supplying farmers with vegetable seed, and the need to address fake and counterfeit seed.

Next steps for knowing more

Data collection for the study started after the workshop in July, and was completed on August 20, just after political tensions culminated in a coup d’état in Mali on August 18, 2020. The survey included focus groups discussions with vegetable farmers and informant interviews with seed regulators, seed companies, seed cooperatives, seed traders, among others.

Study results are expected to become available toward the end of 2020, and will contribute to a plan of action on how to develop a more reliable supply of vegetable seed and promote the use of efficient irrigation methods.

What women want: First steps to inclusive irrigation investments

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by Elizabeth Bryan, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Small scale irrigation can increase smallholders’ income, contribute to economic growth, boost food and nutrition security, and enhance climate resilience. In the past, these immense benefits have been top priorities for decision-makers investing in small scale irrigation. Another potential outcome has been receiving growing attention: empowerment of rural women.

But, successfully designing irrigation interventions to support women’s empowerment requires concerted efforts and careful planning. Women’s level of empowerment depends on the context within which they live, resources they have access to, and their ability to make strategic life choices resulting in well-being improvements. These factors change throughout the course of women’s lives. That’s why studying what empowerment looks like and what women want—in a certain place, at a certain time—is a crucial first step to inclusive irrigation investments.

This is one conclusion my colleagues and I have reached based on recently published research on the link between small scale irrigation and women’s empowerment, conducted with support from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation.

Understanding empowerment

In the Upper East Region of Ghana, many households live on the edge of malnutrition and poverty. They have few options to improve their well-being, but small scale irrigation offers the potential to expand production during the long dry season and boost incomes, food security, nutrition, and health.

Conducting focus groups and interviews with men and women farmers and traders in four villages in the Garu-Tempare district, we sought to understand whether introducing modern technologies for small scale irrigation could also increase women’s empowerment by changing their access to resources, decision-making authority, control over income, and time burden.

A woman carries vegetables, and her baby. Photo: Elizabeth Bryan/IFPRI.

Overall, we found women were becoming more involved in income-earning activities, and were taking on more leadership roles, contributing a larger share of household income, and participating more in decision-making. While this trend was generally viewed as positive, many women felt burdened by the additional responsibility of being expected to provide for their family:

“My father farmed a lot and had large stock of food and so looking for food to feed the family was not the job of my mothers and my father also supported his children’s education. But now everything is on me. My husband is not able to support,” said a woman irrigator in Akara village.

On the other had, women also reported increasing access to financial resources, information, and training as well as freedom to travel and to participate in trade.

The role of irrigation in empowerment

In this context, many women were engaged in irrigated production during the dry season. The women who were involved reported that they did directly benefit, gaining control over income from the irrigated plots they managed. They also listed indirect benefits, including greater income and food security for the household.

“Those who use the machine [motor pump], it helped us to get money. When our husbands gave us land and we see that it is small, we use some of the money to go and buy more land to farm. We also used some of the money to buy seeds and hire ‘by day’ labor to help us in our farming activities and buying fertilizers,” reported one woman who used a motorized pump in Mongnoori village.

Both men and women recognized welfare improvements as a result of small scale irrigation, including higher social status, greater food security and diet quality, and the ability to achieve shared goals, such as sending children to school. Gains such as these are factors that can contribute to women’s empowerment.

Barriers to women’s empowerment

However, several barriers hinder women from directly adopting and benefitting from small scale irrigation. We found that women tended to have less access to resources, such as land, water, and pumps.

“If we get [a pump], we will give it to our husbands and are helping them…. [We] can’t do [our] own [irrigated farming] because we don’t have land,” said a woman from Yidigu village.

Women also lacked access to financial resources like credit to purchase irrigation equipment, rent land near water sources, or hire labor to dig wells. Social norms contributed to these social inequalities—especially inheritance norms limiting women’s access to land and property.

A dry riverbed, from which farmers extract water via hand-dug wells during the dry season. Photo: Elizabeth Bryan/IFPRI.

However, women often benefitted indirectly from small scale irrigation, even when they themselves did not directly engage in the activity, as it freed up time previously spent farming to engage in other income-earning activities over which they had more control.

“Your husband farms [in gardens] and you water and thank God associations have come and we can now get access to machines [pumps], and the men will use them to irrigate. So, now we only observe and they irrigate,” explained a woman in Mongnoori village.

This finding suggests that women might benefit from investments in small scale irrigation in unexpected, indirect ways. In this specific context, decision-makers looking to achieve empowerment for women through small scale irrigation might consider other strategies—beyond providing access to irrigation—such as developing opportunities for women within value chains or marketing activities.

Tools to start right and stay on course

As governments and programs increasingly expand investments in irrigation infrastructure and technologies, the constraints, needs, and preferences of women should factor into the design and implementation of irrigation interventions to ensure that women benefit.

This can mean engaging gender experts and using research-based tools to help ensure that women benefit from planned interventions. For example, the Gender in Irrigation Learning and Improvement Tool (GILIT) can be used to enable gender equity in irrigation projects and schemes, and the REACH toolkit can provide guidance on how to include women in planning and evaluating irrigation projects. Later on in the lifecycle of irrigation programs, the Pro-WEAI tool can help measure women’s empowerment, enabling decision-makers to make adjustments to reach empowerment goals.

These types of gender-sensitive tools are indispensable for anyone investing in small scale irrigation with the goal to support women’s empowerment. While women can benefit from small scale irrigation, one cannot assume that providing access to irrigation is necessarily enough. Investing in understanding how to benefit women—whether directly via irrigated farming or via adjacent opportunities—is necessary to successfully add women’s empowerment to the long list of benefits that small scale irrigation delivers.

Student interview: Finding the right crop varieties for irrigated fodder production and livestock benefits in Ethiopia

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Misba Abdela is a lecturer and PhD student at Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University, in Ethiopia. In March 2020, he joined the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) as a PhD graduate fellow, supported by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI). Abdela previously worked with ILSSI researchers to study the effect of deep tillage on groundwater recharge as part of his MSc work.

Misba Abdela doing fieldwork in Ethiopia. Photo: Fikadu Tessema.

You have won a fellowship to conduct your PhD research on irrigated fodder cultivations. How did you get interested in this topic?

In Ethiopia, livestock play a vital role in smallholders’ livelihood by providing food, cash income, farm power, and other inputs such as manure to improve crop production. However, the productivity of livestock has remained very low due to various constraints, with feed shortages—both in quantity and quality—being the major one.

Feed shortages are aggravated by limited investment in feed and forage development and by the increased expansion of cropland, to the extent of encroaching into grazing land. As a result, the ‘business-as-usual’ approach to livestock feed sourcing is no longer a viable option, and there is an urgent need to optimally use available land, water, and capital resources to produce high-quality fodder for a sustainable livestock feed supply and production system. The increasing demand for livestock products, together with the shortage of feed and of the complex layers of challenges posed by climate change, justifies the need for alternative feed production and supply systems in the nation.

Before I joined this fellowship, I was doing research on farmer-managed irrigated fodder production, funded by the Appropriate Scale Mechanization Consortium (ASMC) project in collaboration with ILRI and Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, under which farmers received solar pumps (Maji pumps) and water storage tanks for irrigation use. While conducting this research, I understood farmers’ willingness to engage more in fodder production and their interest in potential alternative fodder crops with higher regenerative capacity and biomass yield per unit of land. Therefore, I was very happy when I got the opportunity to continue my PhD research in the area of irrigated fodder production. 

What’s a poorly understood aspect of irrigated fodder cultivation?

Information on the suitability of fodder varieties, and their responses to nutrient and water when they are produced under irrigation, is largely lacking in the Highlands of Ethiopia. Therefore, the main aim of our study is to investigate the performances of selected fodder species under different nutrient and moisture-input regimes.

Particularly, our study will explore yields and nutritional value of ten selected species and cultivars of fodder under optimal moisture conditions, under the conditions of drought stress, and under different nutrient application rates. We will also explore viable economic and agronomic scenarios of irrigated fodder production within the smallholder farmer setting in Ethiopia.

Misba Abdela working to identify fodder varieties with the highest biomass per unit of land. Photo: Fikadu Tessema.

What would be the gains of scaling up irrigated fodder production and who could benefit?

Scaling up fodder production would have great benefits. It would solve the feed challenge in local communities. Availability of a high-producing forage for livestock would benefit women by reducing the time they spend looking for feed; it would improve food security and household nutrition because of improved livestock productivity (more milk and milk products such as cheese and butter).

Also, producing high-quality fodder crops would reduce free grazing and allow farmers to adopt a ‘cut-and-carry feeding system’ – cutting and carrying feed to the animals in their corrals, rather than letting the animals roam free. In turn, zero or reduced grazing then create opportunity for girls to attend school as it is otherwise often the girls who are often kept home from school to look after the cattle.

Fodder production would also bring other benefits to the landscape: Fodder crops like Napier grass are deep rooted, and planting these on a large scale would minimize runoff as well as soil and nutrient loss from farm fields. This would result in reduced soil nutrient losses and contaminant fluxes into Lake Tana, and it would help to combat the rapidly expanding water hyacinth, which is endangering the lake. At a larger scale, limiting the growth of water hyacinth will in turn help to regulate water flow downstream, to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) reservoir.  

What are the biggest challenges to making irrigated fodder cultivation more widespread?

Identifying the major challenges to making irrigated fodder production more widespread might require more studies. Some of the major challenges may include farmers’ awareness in the area of irrigated fodder – for example, farmers might prefer to produce and irrigate vegetables or cereal crops rather than fodder crops due to a lack of knowledge on the comparative advantages. Another major challenge is market linkages, as it is difficult for farmers to get seeds of different fodder crops and to sell the excess fodder that they produced. 

What do you hope your work can contribute to in the future?

At the end of this research, we hope we will be able to identify the best fodder crops that are suitable for the agro-climatic conditions of the Ethiopian Highlands. Improved fodder crops—both in quantity and quality—would mean fodders with higher biomass per unit of land, higher regenerative capacity, higher production per unit of water and nutrients inputs, higher nutritional quality, and higher cost-benefit ratios. Identifying these best-bet fodder crops would solve the feed problem of the communities, improving the livestock production, incomes, and livelihoods of farmers in the nation. 

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