Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

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Student interview: New technologies could help farmers boost traditional crops in Tanzania

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Paul Reuben Mwinuka is currently working as senior technologist at the Department of Engineering Sciences and Technology at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. His research interests include agricultural water and nutrients management, rainwater harvesting, and precision agriculture. He joined the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) capacity development program as a PhD student in 2017, when he was researching precision agriculture and in particular how remote sensing technology can be used to optimize water and nitrogen for neglected horticultural species, such as African eggplant.

What are the most important findings from your research on how to optimize use of water and nutrients for growing African eggplant?

To find out the best combinations of water and nitrogen for this specific crop, I investigated whether it was possible to use mobile phone thermal imaging and multispectral imaging from drones to assess plants’ nutrient status. I also studied whether the ratios of different channels of light reflected from the plant canopy (multispectral vegetation indices) can help us assess the interaction between water and nitrogen in irrigated African eggplant. This is possible because the absorption and reflection of solar radiation within the plant differs depending on each plant’s condition.

Paul Reuben Mwinuka performing fieldwork in Tanzania.

The study observed that the optimum application of water and nitrogen in irrigated African eggplant production under tropical sub-humid conditions was lower than what had been recommended in previous studies, by 20% and 25% respectively. This means that farmers can invest in less fertilizer and use less water, but still get an optimum yield.

What is your view on the challenges farmers will face when trying to apply exactly the right amount of irrigation water and nutrients for maximum yields?

I would advise farmers in Tanzania to follow these research results when they grow African eggplant, as this will help them to cut down fertilizer and pumping costs as well as improve their productivity.

The challenge is often that current recommendations are based on either water trials or nitrogen trials, but hardly ever the two in tandem. This means that the recommendations maximize the quantity of both water and nitrogen. Our findings showed that in areas with fertilizer scarcity, optimal yield could still be achieved by using just 79% of recommended nitrogen, whereas in water-limiting conditions, optimal yields would require 187 kg/ha nitrogen per season. This allows farmers, depending on their resources, to define optimum water and nutrient strategies as they may not always have access to both in abundance. In other words, if farmers are short on for example water, they can adjust their application of fertilizer to get optimum yields and vice versa. The main challenges in managing the water and fertilizer inputs in this way is related to the costs and availability of these inputs in the farmer’s area.

New technologies, such as drones and mobile phone thermal imaging, can help identify the best combination of water and nitrogen when growing African eggplant. Photos provided by Paul Reuben Mwinuka.

 What is the role of small scale irrigation in Tanzania? Could you imagine a particular potential for neglected horticultural species, such as African eggplant?

Small scale irrigation in Tanzania plays an important role in ensuring food security and nutrition. Small scale irrigators supply a significant amount of vegetables in the market during dry seasons. African eggplant, though neglected in terms of improvements, is one of the highly produced and consumed vegetables due to its nutritional benefits. The crop also has a long shelf life and can be transported to the market with minimum losses, which is something that makes it particularly popular with many small scale irrigators. Farmers could increase the yield of African eggplant by more than 40% if they put my findings into use.

What did you learn from doing work with ILSSI on agriculture and smallholder farmers? 

Under the ILSSI project, I collaborated with researchers from different countries, which helped me build a bigger network and taught me the importance of collaborating with researchers with different expertise. The experience improved my understanding of existing opportunities and challenges facing small scale farmers. The ILSSI project has also exposed me to different water and nitrogen management technologies, such as motorized water pumps, drip systems design and installation, moisture sensors, thermal imagers, and drones, and helped show how these technologies can boost small scale farming.

What will be your next step in your career in water and agriculture research?

My next step in agricultural research is to address the challenge of low water and nitrogen use efficiency in African eggplant in areas with different climates. I expect my research to result in guidelines on how to grow more and better African eggplant in different places and under different climatic conditions.

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Breaking new ground with groundwater games in Ethiopia

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Expanding the use of small scale irrigation in Ethiopia can improve farmers’ incomes, nutrition, and livelihoods, but sustainable growth hinges on careful governance of groundwater.

In Ethiopia, scientists with the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) are launching fieldwork to engage farming communities in experiential learning processes to improve groundwater governance. This happens as small scale irrigation becomes increasingly popular and pressure on groundwater resources mounts. The approach, described as behavioral games, allows communities to experiment with possible future realities, strengthening their shared understanding of groundwater decisions and related consequences.

Water resources in Ethiopia are generally sufficient to sustainably expand irrigation, which could result in improved incomes and livelihoods for millions. But despite ample water resource potential, groundwater recharge might not be sufficient to meet the growing demand for water for irrigation. In the Ethiopian Highlands, for example, water levels in shallow wells fluctuate by 2 to 15 meters as the dry season advances, and most wells can only support irrigation during the first three months of the eight-month-long dry season.

That’s why, first of all, using groundwater in conjunction with surface water, where possible, is a sustainable approach to expanding small scale irrigation. Second, groundwater can be preserved through different tactics, such as by increasing recharge or using conservation agriculture practices that are more water efficient. Strong community governance of groundwater resources is also essential to ensure the best and most fair use of this precious resource.

Community governance of precious groundwater resources

The behavioral games approach has previously been used in India, Colombia and elsewhere to strengthen community governance of shared resources, including groundwater. Performed as collaborative, facilitated exercises, the games—and subsequent community-wide discussions reflecting on the process—support a community to build a shared understanding of how one farmer’s irrigation choices might limit their neighbor’s access to groundwater later in the season.

Community members recently participated in groundwater games in Ethiopia. Photo: Fekadu Gelaw.

This understanding can help curb unintended overexhaustion of shared resources and increase collaboration on groundwater governance. In India, communities who participated in the games were significantly more likely to adopt rules governing groundwater use, compared to the communities that did not participate.

The approach has been adapted to fit the Ethiopian context, as explained by Hagar ElDidi, research analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI):

“We take into account the types of water intensive- and water-saving crops that are common in these areas and consider the shallow groundwater levels in Ethiopia. From initial visits to the communities we had targeted, we found that their wells are usually quite shallow. When the water table falls, farmers dig deeper, but using pumps at this depth becomes too costly and farmers have to resort to using buckets, which is more labor intensive and therefore limits the size of their irrigated area to vegetable gardens only. All of this has implications for how groundwater can best be governed.”

Unlike in for example India, groundwater scarcity is not clearly visible, nor very alarming, in Ethiopia. At least not yet.

“Because small scale irrigation is expanding, now is a good time to increase farmers’ understanding of how they, through collective action, can prevent groundwater depletion in the future,” said ElDidi.

Playing community games to plant new perspectives

So far, the ILSSI team has carried out a preliminary test of the behavioral games approach in three villages, and the team of local collaborators and facilitators is currently in the field rolling out the games, community discussions, and related surveys in 15 villages around Butajra town and within the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region. Another 15 villages will also be surveyed, although without playing the games, to provide a basis for comparison.

The use of groundwater for irrigation is a recent phenomenon in these areas, but has picked up particularly during the past five years, according to Fekadu Gelaw, assistant professor of Agricultural Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics at Haramaya University in Ethiopia, who leads ILSSI’s fieldwork.

“As a result, farmers have not yet faced a dramatic change in the groundwater level. None of the communities we have visited so far have any rules—informal or formal—about groundwater use, well digging, crop choice, investments by outsiders, and so on,” said Gelaw. “For now, the Ethiopian government is also promoting the extensive use of groundwater and even provides free motorized pumps to groups of farmers.”

Reflecting on exchanges with communities in the past weeks, Fekadu Gelaw indicated that before the experimental game was played, the majority of community members perceived that the increased use of groundwater for irrigation will have no effect on the groundwater level. Many even believed that groundwater level is not affected by the number of irrigators, nor by the type of crops grown through irrigation, and almost all community members believed that rules for groundwater use were unnecessary.

“All of this dramatically changes after the game,” noted Fekadu Gelaw. “The game seems to have triggered community members to think about an issue they have never thought of before. After the game, most propose establishing rules on groundwater governance, especially rules to regulate groundwater use by small scale investors that cultivate irrigated crops on land rented from community members.”

The fieldwork, which was permitted by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), is moving ahead in the coming weeks, with the ILSSI team taking all necessary measures to safely conduct the work despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The team supplies the necessary personal protective equipment to all individuals participating in the games, interviews, and discussions, encourages frequent use of hand sanitzer, and observes social distancing measures.

In six months, a round of follow-up visits to the communities is planned to examine to which extent the insights brought about by the games has an effect on groundwater governance over the long term.

Boosting small scale irrigation in Mali by training vegetable seed producers

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by Jean-baptiste Tignegre and Pepijn Schreinemachers

Gaining access to more and better vegetable seeds represents an opportunity for smallholder farmers in Mali to grow high-value crops and improve their diets, incomes, and ability to adopt small scale irrigation technologies.

Small scale irrigation is expensive for many farmers in Mali and elsewhere. Smallholder farmers who produce staple food crops may not easily be able to make such an investment. Cultivating more profitable crops, such as vegetables, offers better prospects for eventually being able to invest in irrigation and improve farm incomes.

However, Malian farmers have limited opportunity to take up production of vegetables due to an under-developed seed sector in the country. Currently, vegetable seed production is often restricted to the wet season due to a lack of irrigation technologies, which is not the only constraint. Seed companies and cooperatives have low technical capacity in variety development and quality seed production, face difficulties in accessing finance, and lack suitable equipment for seed processing and packing. As a result, many vegetable farmers are using costly imported seed.

To strengthen local vegetable seed production, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) and World Vegetable Center in Mali recently trained staff of vegetable seed companies and seed cooperatives on how to strengthen seed production.

The training was held at the World Vegetable Center Regional Office for West and Central Africa – Dry Regions in Samanko near Bamako on November 16–20, 2020. Twenty staff of fourteen different seed companies and cooperatives participated in the workshop. Participants came from diverse regions of Mali including Kayes, Sikasso, Koutiala, Koro, and Bamako.

World Vegetable Center’s Regional Director Dr. Mamadou Kabirou Ndiaye welcomed participants and described the opportunities and challenges of vegetable producers in Mali and West Africa, including limitations in accessing water for irrigation and an under-developed market.

The five-day training combined classroom teaching with hands-on sessions. Resource persons came from the World Vegetable Center and the Institute or Rural Economy. Topics included vegetable breeding, including different crossing methods, seed legislation, seed production methods, crop management, soil fertility management, pest management, and irrigated water management, including the pros and cons of different irrigation methods.

Participants said that they were very satisfied with the course and hoped for a future opportunity to receive follow-on training. Given the high interest among vegetable seed producers, a second course has been scheduled for March 22–26, 2021.

Understanding how small scale irrigation can grow big benefits in Mali

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For a long time, irrigation in Mali was generally equated with the publicly run Office du Niger that serves nearly 100,000 hectares of irrigated rice production in the central part of the country. However, in recent years, a small scale irrigation sector has been rapidly developing, and now is the time to ensure that small irrigators also get to grow big.

Overall, irrigators in Mali consume more nutrient-rich food groups than farmers relying on rain to water their crops, but how much more depends on various factors such as the type of irrigation technology used, the level of non-farm income, farmers’ literacy level and participation in farmer groups.

Moreover, although small scale irrigation is linked with higher production and income generation, small scale irrigators do not consume as much or as good food as farmers participating in larger irrigation schemes. This is likely due to small scale irrigators’ poorer market access, which means that even though their earnings increase, they have only limited opportunities to sell their own produce and buy what is needed for a more diversified diet.

As small scale irrigation expands in Mali, and across much of sub-Saharan Africa, identifying how more farmers can enjoy more benefits from irrigation is becoming increasingly important. On March 3 and March 10, 2021, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small-Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), with support from the USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs, therefore held a national and a regional workshop in Bamako and Sikasso, respectively, to identify the best ways to accelerate expansion of small scale irrigation.

Workshop participants identify and map actors in small scale irrigation. Photo provided by Claudia Ringler/IFPRI.

Adoption of small scale irrigation, by its nature, is disjointed and involves many different actors: Farmers, the private sector, and the government, who do not all have access to the same information at the same time. This results, for example, in higher costs for farmers wanting access to technology, but also lower equipment sales for the private sector; this asymmetry of information slows down expansion.

Improving information flow and strengthening relationships can help remove some of these barriers. For example, supporting strong but poorly connected actors, such as the private sector, to gain insights into what producer groups and their farmer members are looking for in small scale irrigation technology—as well as what linkages these groups already have with research and suppliers—could help the private sector strengthen its sales of irrigation equipment.

As Abdoul Karim Diamoutene, workshop facilitator, noted summarizing his impressions, “A few participants in the recent national workshop suggested that they knew all possible actors that affect small scale irrigation diffusion in Mali, but at the end of the event they conceded that they were surprised about the diversity of influencers that can make a difference for the diffusion of technology.”

To identify actors that influence the diffusion of technologies and how these stakeholders interact with each other, the workshops used the Net-Map method, a facilitation or interview technique that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes. Representatives from government, research, non-governmental organizations, donors, and the private sector participated in the deliberations.

Through the process, the national workshop identified 73 different actors who are linked to the diffusion of small scale irrigation, including a large number of government agencies, credit institutions, farmer associations, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, and donors. These results will be fed into software to create a map of who is driving expansion of small scale irrigation to support analysis of linkages and influence levels. A working paper will also be prepared building on this analysis and will be shared with stakeholders to support their decision-making.

With more knowledge in hand, farmer groups, cooperatives, private sector companies, and other influential actors will be able to identify entry points to intervene, remove blockages, and support important relationships, ultimately enabling the diffusion of affordable, good-quality technologies to farmers.

Irrigating fodder crops to improve nutrition for animals and people in Ethiopia

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When livestock is fed high-quality fodder, produced with the help of irrigation, they deliver better milk and meat, benefitting the nutritional health of their keepers and consumers. The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) and its partners are investigating best-bet options for where and how to expand the production of irrigated fodder in Ethiopia.

With urbanization, increasing incomes, and a growing population, the demand for animal-based products such as beef and milk is on the rise in Ethiopia. The livestock sector not only provides rural dwellers with cash income, draft power, and transportation, it also serves as an important source of food and nutrition for the entire country. Studies have shown that when livestock keepers are able to increase milk production and provide milk for the household, the nutritional health of children below the age of five is stabilized.

When farmers are able to increase milk production, the nutritional health of children is stabilized. Photo: Melkamu Deresh/ILRI.

However, the health and productivity of livestock is hampered by shortages of livestock feed, seasonality of feed supply, and unreliable feed quality. Weak market linkages also make it difficult for livestock keepers to access commercial feed, though fodder markets are growing in Ethiopia. A low feed supply compromises the supply of milk and meat, making it difficult to fulfill the nutritional needs of Ethiopians.

ILSSI, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems (LSIL) have been collaborating to identify where and how to expand fodder production—toward ensuring a steady supply with higher quality—using promising small scale irrigation practices.

Almost 20 percent of Ethiopia’s land is suitable for irrigated fodder

The Government of Ethiopia and donor partners have expressed interest in expanding fodder production under irrigation. To contribute to national decision-making and planning, ILSSI and partners have mapped where such expansion can sustainably be done.

This work began with field studies on irrigation opportunities for fodder production. Those studies show high potential for irrigating certain fodder species and for directing that feed to crossbred animals for higher productivity. Equally important, farmers saw the trials and began to irrigate fodder to meet demand in their local areas, pointing to the possibility for scaling.

To pinpoint where to scale these practices, ILSSI scientists selected promising fodder types, chosen to fit into the different agro-ecological settings in the country. They then mapped areas suitable for these fodder types, taking into account factors such as climate, soil, infrastructure, and market access. The results indicated that, with the use of small scale irrigation, ~31% of the country (about 350,500 km2) is highly suitable for producing desho (Pennisetum glaucifolium), followed by vetch (Vicia sativa) (23%) and Napier (Pennisetum purpureum) (20%).

The factors used to determine the suitability of land for irrigated fodder production include climate (rainfall and evaporation), soil (soil texture, pH, and soil depth), land use, and slope as well as access to markets and feed demand.
A preliminary mapping of land suitable for irrigated Napier production. The most suitable area was assessed to be 92 percent suitable, whereas the least appropriate area was assessed to be only 20 percent suitable. Land is considered suitable at 80 percent and above.

Local interest and impact of irrigated fodder

Since 2015, ILSSI has been collaborating with ILRI and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), as well as local partners such as Bahir Dar University, Amhara Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI), and Southern Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), to demonstrate and promote the production of irrigated fodder. Continuous engagement with farmers through on-farm trials and demonstrations piqued farmers’ interest in irrigated fodder production.

For example, in the Robit Bata Kebele of Bahir Dar Zuria district, 15 farmers participated in evaluating water productivity and nutritional quality of fodder during the first year of the project, in 2015. They allocated plots of land ranging between 50 and 140 m2 per household for Napier grass production. Water for irrigation was sourced from shallow groundwater wells, varying in depth between 6 and 17 meters. The continued farmer participation and strong collaboration with local partners meant that more farmers adopted the practice, reaching 400 farmers by 2018, and with many households allocating as much as 1,000 m2 for irrigated fodder.

The introduction of irrigated fodder production has helped the farmers increase their incomes through milk production and cattle fattening. The farmers are embracing the practice and now fodder and milk markets are emerging. According to Aberra Adie, feed and forages researcher with ILRI, the trial has shifted farmers’ preferences:

“Before the introduction of irrigated fodder, farmers used irrigation to grow khat—a stimulant perennial cash crop. In the region, khat is not socially and religiously acceptable, but it used to earn them a good profit. However, since the introduction of irrigated fodder, farmers are abandoning khat in favor of forage farming. The farmers also indicated that fodder irrigation is a lot easier than khat production, which needs lots of water and pesticide.”

Partnering with cooperatives and scaling within the market system

Currently, ILRI is partnering with multiple farmer cooperatives, the private sector and regional extension offices in Ethiopia to scale up irrigated fodder production.

In the ILSSI project sites, identified as most suitable for irrigated fodder, ILRI is facilitating strong partnerships between private enterprises and emerging farmer cooperatives to work in forage seed production and marketing. The engagement is expected to identify the favorable conditions for smallholder farmers to access forage seeds and irrigation facilities. Specific attention is being given to opportunities for women in irrigated fodder and dairy value chains.

ILRI is also collaborating with other projects to increase the awareness and practice of irrigated fodder production across the country, serving development outcomes on food security, nutrition, poverty alleviation, and sustainable use of ecosystems.

Irrigated fodder production can help farmers increase their incomes through milk production and cattle fattening. Photo: ILRI.

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This news story was put together with significant contributions from Abeyou Worqlul and Yihun Dile (Texas A & M University) & Melkamu Derseh and Aberra Adie (ILRI).

Texas A&M University System Member