Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

matt.stellbauer

USAID Administrator visits the Feed The Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation

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USAID Administrator Mark Green visited the Texas A&M Borlaug Institute of International Agriculture on October 16, 2017 to learn more about the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI). Administrator Green also attended the Global Pandemic Summit conducted by the Scowcroft International Institute at Texas A&M.  

ILSSI—one of 24 Feed the Future Innovation Labs—developing and evaluating methods of small scale irrigation for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Ghana.  A briefing on ILSSI was presented to Administrator Green by the ILSSI director, Dr. Neville Clarke, who noted that the laboratory conducts studies to evaluate new small scale irrigation innovations in farmer’s fields, household surveys to evaluate the nutritional, gender and economic consequences of these innovations, and uses an integrated modeling system to analyze results and to estimate impact at from farm to national levels of scale.  Farmers and extension workers are trained in the use of small scale irrigation innovations, and students in academic institutions participate in field research and are trained in the use of these modeling methods. ILSSI engages stakeholders at local, regional and national levels for planning, evaluating and adoption of its products. Users of the ILSSI products include government analysts and decision makers, private sector investors and practitioners (farmers and related local communities).

Administrator Green commended the contributions being made by U.S. universities to international food and agriculture development through the 24 Feed the Future Innovation Labs supported by USAID. He recognized the importance of irrigation to smallholder farmers, especially during the dry season when families can have year-round access to fresh products for consumption at the household level and sell the surplus to generate new income.

USAID Administrator Mark Green received the Texas A&M Lifetime Achievement Award during the 3rd Annual Global Pandemic Summit conducted by the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, a part of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.  He provided a keynote address at the Summit.

Water-smart investment benefits ripple beyond food security

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By Meredith Giordano on April 23, 2016

Nearly four years ago, researchers documented for the first time how farmer-led irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is transforming food security at an astonishing scale. They also showed that smallholder water management innovations hold potential to boost crop yields and household revenue by tens of billions of US dollars.

Since then, however, new research for development has revealed how small-scale irrigation may have benefits that reach far beyond food security alone.

Four ways to invest in smallholder irrigation

The research was initially carried out by the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) and its partners under the AgWater Solutions project. At its conclusion, the project recommended four key areas that investments should focus on in order to unlock the potential of small-scale irrigation:

  1. increasing access to water resources, including sustainable groundwater, small reservoirs and rainwater harvesting;
  2. catalyzing smallholder value chains, removing information and marketing constraints;
  3. creating policy synergies, such as aligned energy policies; and
  4. taking a watershed perspective to reduce adverse environmental impacts.

Learn more: Water for wealth and food security: Supporting farmer-driven investments in agricultural water management.  

Building on this work, WLE and USAID have supported research and development of business models that can operationalize these recommendations, while also exploring new solutions and creating a better understanding of potential additional impacts and benefits from investments in smallholder irrigation.

New technologies produce new opportunities and remove constraints

One new opportunity is solar pumps, which has only recently become a financially viable option for smallholder farmers. Solar power irrigation has taken off in India and is starting to take hold in sub-Saharan Africa, where solar powered pumps can serve as a more versatile, green alternative to motor pumps. The Africa Rising project, in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), has begun demonstrating solar powered pumps in two regions of Ethiopia.

Another new technology is wetting front detectors – essentially a device that makes it easy for farmers to see when the soil has been sufficiently watered. WLE researchers are introducing this tool in Ethiopia and Ghana, through the USAID-supported Innovation Lab on Small Scale irrigation (ILSSI), to help farmers manage their water resources more effectively.  The technology has proven successful in reducing irrigation frequency, consequently saving time and labor costs as well as conserving precious water resources.  

Similarly, on request of the Government of Nigeria, researchers are developing new information and communication technology applications in flood-prone regions, such as in Nigeria’s Benue River Basin, to support flood early warning systems, reduce risks posed by flooding, and to put floodwaters to productive agricultural use.

Finally, WLE researchers are also exploring options to improve farmers’ access to financial information and credit, which has been a key constraint in the past. Activities include training to improve financial literacy of both farmers and financial institutions, improving access to loans for irrigation technologies, and assessing the potential for private-public partnerships in irrigation

Small-Scale Irrigation: Present & Future from Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)

Potential impacts and benefits

The AgWater Solutions project provided estimates of the potential reach (millions of people) and additional household net revenue (billions of US dollars annually) for a number of different on-farm and local community water solutions across sub-Saharan Africa. Now, new research provides insights into other potential impacts and benefits, including nutrition, health and climate resilience.   

For example, the potential for small-scale irrigation to improve gender equity and nutrition security has been an understudied component of agricultural water management research in the past. Now, as part of the ILSSI program, WLE researchers are unpacking the complex relationships among water, nutrition, health and gender. Also farmers’ resilience may be strengthened through irrigation solutions, especially through water-smart agriculture that considers water variability and climate uncertainties.

Small-scale irrigation continues to grow in sub-Saharan Africa, and the potential for huge, beneficial impacts remain. While the investment pathways originally identified are still valid, new technologies and insights open doors for even greater impacts. Innovative solutions for small-scale irrigation hold the promise of large-scale benefits beyond yields and income, including gender equality, nutrition security and climate resilience.

Pail lifter, drip irrigation & conservation agriculture technologies

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Water is scarce in Africa.  In Ethiopia, women get water from a shallow well like the picture on the right by throwing a pail with a rope, and then manually lifting the pail. The water is used for multiple purposes one of which is irrigation.  The task is very taxing to the woman’s body.  A team of engineers from Bahir Dar University and North Carolina A&T State University, funded by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), designed a simple ‘Pail Lifter’ shown on the left picture.   Water is lifted from a pail using a ‘Pail Lifter’ and then stored in a tank.  ‘Pail Lifter’ eases the drudgery of lifting water just with a string, and minimizes well contamination because the rope is wrapped on the lifter and is not lying on the ground or touched by human hands.  From the tank, water is distributed to the field using a drip irrigation system.  Although the ‘Pail Lifter’ was mainly designed to fetch water for irrigation; eventually women used it to fetch water for livestock and home use.  Because of provision of irrigation, two villages that barely produces vegetables have women enabled to produced onions, garlic and tomatoes in 0.01 ha fields beside their homes.  For garlic and tomato, average harvests were 28 kg and 97 kg, respectively per 0.01 ha, with about 34% of the tomato consumed by the household and 66% were sold.  This is a welcome source of income to women who just began to grow vegetables.   Conservation agriculture production was compared with conventional practice.  Conservation agriculture involved no-tillage, continuous organic residue mulch, and diverse species rotation.  For garlic, average yield was 17 kg for conservation agriculture and 11 kg for conventional; for tomatoes it was 58 kg for conservation agriculture and 38 kg for conventional.  Water use in conservation agriculture system was 16% less than the conventional system.  The team is optimistic that as the women become more familiar with conservation agriculture, water use will be even lower than the current 16% water savings.

An encouraging success story is from a young and newly married woman commercial vegetable home gardener for privacy we will call Eme.  Emetestified that with the help of her husband together they produced 240 kg of tomato from a 0.01 ha land near her home.  Sixty-seven percent (160 kg) of tomatoes were harvested from conservation agriculture plots and 33% (80 kg) were harvested from conventionally tilled plots.  She sold about 210 kg of tomato and the rest, 30 kg, have been consumed by their household and provided to relatives and friends for free, a common culture in Ethiopia.  While tomato was being harvested, she prepared foods from tomato once every three days stating that tomato helped her to diversify their daily food improving her family’s nutrition.  She made about 1300 Birr ($65) from selling tomato.   As newly married couple, they were able to pay house utilities and able to save money in a bank.  She had learned that the drip system saved her time and drudgery of irrigating vegetables than doing it manually. This gave her more time to care for her six months old baby.  She also learned that mulching saves water and increases productivity. So, they are planning to apply mulch for their other vegetables and coffee plants. 

Pail lifter, drip irrigation and conservation agriculture studies are just a year old, ILSSI is optimistic as more training is provided and as protocols are improved because of experience gained by women, the number of vegetables grown per year will increase from at least once to four times a year, increasing income, empowering women and diversifying diets of Ethiopian households.

Article by: Manuel Reyes

Shallow well. Photo by Manuel Reyes

Pail Lifter. Photo by Amalake Ameru Jembere

Texas A&M University System Member