Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Research highlight

Enhancing Groundwater Governance through Experimental Games in Ghana

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by Emmanuel Obuobie*, Claudia Ringer*, Hagar El Didi*, Wei Zhang*

Thousands of farmers living in the Keta and Anloga districts of Ghana depend on groundwater from the Keta strip for producing vegetables and other food crops for consumption and income generation. The Keta strip lies between a salty lagoon (Keta lagoon) and the sea (Gulf of Guinea), along the East Coast of Ghana. The two districts fall within the dry equatorial climatic region, which is the driest part of Ghana. The main occupation of the people are farming, fishing and trading. Farming is done all year-round, using groundwater from shallow unconfined aquifers within depths of about 15 m. Crops grown include carrots, tomatoes, pepper, okra, onion, lettuce, potatoes, maize and cassava. Farming in the Keta and Anloga districts is impossible without irrigation because of relatively low rainfall (about 800 mm), a long dry season of about six months, long dry spells within the rainfall season, high annual evaporation (about 1800 mm) and sandy soils.

An irrigator drawing water from a well to irrigate her crops at Whuti – Anloga district, Ghana (Photo credit: Emmanuel Obuobie)

Farmers in the two districts abstract groundwater through large diameter open concrete lined wells and small diameter (2-4 inches) piped tube wells, to irrigate farm sizes between 0.05 and 1 hectares. The groundwater is recharged mainly from rainfall. The recharge rate is relatively high (estimated at about 20% of the annual rainfall). Some of the key challenges that groundwater irrigators are dealing with are declining groundwater tables, insufficient freshwater during the peak of the dry season (February/March) due to low groundwater tables and high evaporation, and saltwater intrusion; all of these impede crop productivity. Most farmers cope by reducing the volume of water used for irrigation but others cope by developing multiple wells for abstracting more water and relocating wells with salty water to locations with freshwater. There are no functioning institutions that support farmer collaboration on water resources; instead farmers operate as individuals. This brings into question the sustainability of groundwater irrigation in the Keta and Anloga districts.

Source: Figure 3 in: Duku et al. (2022).

In December 2022, an intervention in the form of an experimental groundwater game, followed by community discussions of lessons learnt from the game was implemented in 10 communities in the two districts, to improve awareness of the importance of resource governance, with the expectation of enhancing collective action toward more sustainable use and management of groundwater resources, and ultimately to sustain the livelihoods of farmers. The activity was funded by USAID through the Feed the Future Innovation Laboratory for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) project and implemented by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), CSIR-Water Research Institute, the University for Development Studies and the University of Ghana.

In each of the communities, three sets of groundwater games were played by groups of men and women irrigators separately. Each group accessed water from a common source, cultivated crops of their choice and farmers made individual decisions on farm size and number of plots cultivated. It was assumed that only the farm size cultivated had an effect on the volume of groundwater used for simplicity. In the first round of the game, farmers made decisions on farm size without discussing with other members of their group (no communication); in the second round, farmers discussed cultivation ideas with their group members but made individual decision on cultivation. In the last round of the game, farmers communicated within their groups and elected to make rules to govern the farm size cultivated by each farmer and by extension the groundwater resources withdrawn, with sanctions for those farmers who did not comply with the rules (communication with group-elected rules). The game was followed with a debriefing session that included the larger community. The group discussion focused on the sharing of lessons from the groundwater game and farmers’ practical experiences on groundwater management.

Three months after implementing the intervention, an endline survey was conducted in the ten communities and the data were compared to that of a baseline survey, which was conducted prior to the game intervention, to evaluate the effects of the intervention on the communities understanding and management of groundwater resources.

In the baseline survey preceding the games, farmers indicated that, there were no rules or arrangements for managing groundwater in their communities. Irrigators could cultivate as many plots as they wanted and have as many groundwater wells as they could afford, with little or no consideration for the long-term sustainability of the groundwater and their livelihoods. Generally, communities held the belief that groundwater could not be permanently depleted and therefore were strongly opposed to making rules to regulate when and how much to abstract.  

Community debriefing meeting at Woe – Anloga district, Ghana (Photo credit: Emmanuel Obuobie)

Preliminary results from the endline survey show limited actions in response to the intervention at the community level, such as the establishment of institutions or rules on how much groundwater to abstract and when. However, there was an observed improvement in the attendance of community meetings for discussing community development issues including on water, health and hygiene; and improvement in participation in communal labour for cleaning communal facilities and places such as markets, beaches and drains. In addition, communities recalled learning through the game about the depletable nature of groundwater and the need to manage groundwater use. They understood the importance of adopting practices to help manage water use. Community beliefs shifted away from rejection of rules to govern groundwater use (at baseline) to understanding the need for collective action to manage the shared resource, though some communities still maintained that rules would be difficult to establish and enforce. Comparatively, several changes could be observed at the individual level. Actions reported by individual farmers included a reduction in plot size or number of farm plots cultivated, a reduction in number of wells on individual farms; a reduction in cropping intensity, and a reduction in the number of hours irrigated for every round of irrigation.

It might well take several more months or even years to see the full impact of the groundwater intervention. This is not surprising given how long it takes to change long-held understandings and beliefs of how groundwater systems operate. One thing is clear however: we cannot ensure sustainable groundwater-supported livelihoods without changing mental models and the way we develop and manage groundwater in this part of Ghana or anywhere else in the world.

  1. Senior Research Scientist, Water Research Institute – Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana ↩︎
  2. Director, Natural Resources and Resilience – International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA ↩︎
  3. Senior Research Analyst; Natural Resources and Resilience – International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA ↩︎
  4. Senior Research Fellow; Natural Resources and Resilience – International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA ↩︎

Small Scale Irrigation and Nutrition: Lessons from East and West Africa

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by Dawit Mekonnen

Irrigation developers historically aimed to achieve water productivity and efficiency, and increase crop yields for food security, but this approach to irrigation may be slowly changing. A growing body of evidence is increasing our understanding of the contributions of small-scale irrigation development, that is irrigation technologies directly acquired by farmers for their own plots, not only to water security but also to food security and nutrition security. With a global food and nutrition crisis about to enter its fourth year, this year’s theme for World Food Day, “Leave NO ONE behind” calls upon us to look outside traditional food and nutrition security interventions—that are insufficient to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the face of today’s multiple, interlinking crises—to consider a broader set of nutrition-sensitive actions that can reach many and grow crisis resilience.

Since 2014, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) with partners has been developing the most comprehensive evidence to date on the linkages between irrigation and nutrition outcomes of households, women, and children in rural Africa. The studies, implemented by the International Food Policy Research Institute with a range of partners, examine the potential and impact of small-scale irrigation as an intervention to grow nutrition under interlocking crises.  

Building evidence through case studies

Irrigation can affect nutritional outcomes through multiple pathways, including through changes in production, increased income, improved water supply (e.g. WASH), and through affecting women’s empowerment. In addition to identifying pathways and developing frameworks, ILSSI studies have documented the relationships between irrigation and nutrition drawing on intra-household surveys from Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Tanzania. A longitudinal study of socioeconomic status, energy and nutrient intakes and hemoglobin concentration in ILSSI sites in Ethiopia, implemented in partnership with Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification (SIIL)[RC(1] , showed a high seasonal variation in women’s diet, and the contribution of irrigation in improving diets and reducing their seasonality. Compared to non-irrigators, women in irrigating households had higher consumption of Vit-C and Calcium during the irrigation season, which helps to address a gap in data on linkages between water insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies.

But not only women in irrigating households show improved diets, but also children. A study drawing on panel data of irrigators and non-irrigators in ILSSI sites of Ethiopia and Tanzania showed that children in irrigating households in Ethiopia had better weight-for-height (WHZ) scores–0.87 standard deviations higher—than children in non-irrigating households. Confirming the resilience contribution of irrigation, the study also noted that in Tanzania, higher WHZ-scores were found in children under-five years of age in irrigating households who reported having experienced a drought in the 5 years preceding the survey.

In Northern Ghana, an ILSSI study found only a modest difference in the household dietary diversity score (HDDS) between irrigators and non-irrigators, but more significant increases in the consumption of animal source foods as well as significant differences in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, sugar and honey. As other studies have highlighted, consuming animal source foods have strong positive impacts on nutritional security, particularly of children.

In Mali, an ILSSI study supported by the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) showed that irrigators are more likely to grow vegetables, fruits, and roots and tubers, which may help supply more nutrient-dense foods to the market for broader nutritional impact in rural communities. In addition, at household level, households with irrigation had significantly better dietary quality and diversity than non-irrigators, and data showed irrigators are more food-secure than non-irrigators. Irrigation also changed land use and labor allocation, as irrigated plots were more intensively used, with 22% and 17% higher use of improved varieties/inorganic fertilizers; 5 times the level of family labor input and more than 2 times the level of hired labor input compared to non-irrigated plots, showcasing irrigation’s contribution to growing rural employment, particularly in the lean season as well as its potential to reducing deforestation and land expansion.

Irrigation and resilience to climate change and weather extremes

Water and food insecurity are interlinked, worsening hunger where farmers rely on rainfed production and cannot access irrigation. Droughts cause backsliding from development gains and push people deeper into poverty. Irrigation dampens negative drought impacts. The ILSSI Ethiopia study found that among households who reported recent experience with drought, women in irrigating households had higher dietary diversity scores compared to women in non-irrigating households. In Tanzania, women in irrigating households also had higher dietary diversity scores (WDDS) compared to women in households without irrigation. Importantly, the impact of irrigation on women’s dietary diversity was more than doubled among households facing drought. The authors also showed that among households in Tanzania who reported having faced a drought shock, irrigating households had higher HDDS compared to non-irrigators. This study highlighted the ways in which irrigation contributes to climate adaptation and resilience, and reduces nutrition inadequacy during climate extremes.

Recent research has further documented the role of irrigation during the 2016 El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drought in Ethiopia. Among rainfed farmers, the 2016 ENSO decreased net crop income by 37%: area cultivated reduced by 8% and the share of harvest sold declined by 10%. Overall, this worsened HDDS by 3%. However, irrigators affected by the ENSO event maintained their net crop income, area cultivated, share of harvest sold, and did not suffer from reductions in HDDS. The study provided further evidence that irrigation is a key climate smart agricultural intervention that improves the resilience of farming households in the face of climate extreme events.

Providing guidance for irrigation investments that improves water, food and nutrition jointly

A collaboration between IFPRI and the World Bank summarized the ILSSI findings in a guidance on improving the nutrition sensitivity of irrigation and agricultural water management directed at World Bank project managers, governments, NGOs and other investors. The guidance provides entry points and indicators for monitoring progress on nutrition-sensitive irrigation. Videos in English and French language provide a quick overview of the guidance and are being used by next users interested in addressing joint climate, water and nutrition crises. With support from USAID BHA, the guidance is currently localized to the Malian context with the help of local nutrition and irrigation experts.

The studies provide a comprehensive body of evidence of the strong effect of irrigation for households’ economic access to food and on nutritional benefits for women and children. Based on this evidence and associated guidance, the goals of irrigation have broadened beyond water productivity and yield gains—toward integrated investment approaches in food and nutritional security that might help get us closer to this year’s World Food Day theme of Leave NO ONE behind. By recognizing the interlinkages, nutrition-sensitive irrigation programs can help realize the full potential of small-scale irrigation interventions – and allow them to go beyond higher yields and water productivity to grow food and nutrition security– while also actively working toward avoiding adverse impacts on human health and nutrition.

How can we address recurring global food and fuel crises? The role of solar powered irrigation

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by Claudia Ringler and Hua Xie

It seems that joint food and energy crises have become the norm: Three have now occurred in just the last 15 years, driven by climate change and other human-made crises such as COVID-19 and the Russia- Ukraine war.

All three crises dramatically pushed up food and energy prices, as well as those of fertilizers, leading to an increase in the number of undernourished people worldwide (Figure 1). The number of hungry has now been on the rise for almost a decade now, and it is unclear if or when the global community will come together to implement interventions to turn this around.

Figure 1: Changes in global food and energy prices and GDP growth in low-and middle-income countries

Source: Headey and Hirvonen (2022) using data from FAO, the World Bank, and the IMF.

The three recent food-fuel price crises demonstrate that food and energy systems are interlinked and that these systems, in turn, are affected by continuing degradation of the environment and water resources. Addressing—and ultimately preventing—such crises is a complex global challenge. Encouraging small-scale actions in these systems that address climate change and pollution, and build sustainability and resilience, can play a key role. Solar irrigation pumps are a particularly promising technology in this regard.

How water, energy, food, and environmental systems in recent crises are interlinked

The 2007/08 crisis was triggered by innovations in bioenergy development—especially the use of maize as transportation fuel, putting food and fuel production in direct competition with each other—and was compounded by higher oil prices and a series of climate shocks. While water issues are not seen as a cause of the crisis, extreme climate events did affect agricultural production levels and water was diverted to grow crops for biofuels, thus reducing water availability for food production and other human needs. The 2011/12 crisis was caused by similar factors, with even more food being diverted for fuel and further climate shocks.

The current crisis began with the COVID-19 pandemic, which quickly spread due to poor public health management in many countries. The pandemic may also be tied to the underlying driver of environmental degradation causing increased human-wildlife interactions, allowing the easier spread of zoonotic diseases. The pandemic response in turn disrupted global transportation networks, including those for food, fertilizer, and fuel. As in previous crises, a series of climate shocks, heat waves, droughts, floods, and cyclones reduced food production in key breadbasket regions, as well as energy access and use and water security.

Small steps to break the fuel and food price crises

Can such crises be prevented? Unfortunately, it appears unlikely that the global community will come together to take decisive action to address them—the limited sharing of COVID-19 vaccines, continued failure to act collectively on climate change, and recurrent food and fertilizer export bans by key producers suggest that there is no will for the complex, coordinated global effort required. However, there are many small steps that individual governments can take, such as eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels. There are also many steps that each one of us can take, such as switching from personal cars to public transportation, reviewing and reducing our energy use, and re-evaluating our diets. 

There are also many steps that farmers can take, including more judicious use of fertilizer, adopting improved agronomic practices and seed technologies and better and adapted use of irrigation technologies. Many of these actions would address the water, energy, and food price crises jointly. As an example, improved nutrient use efficiency of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers would both reduce water pollution and increase food security by lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Solar irrigation pumps—a force to reckon with?

The switch from diesel to solar irrigation pumps is another way to help reduce fuel price spikes and also build climate resilience through improved water security at the farm and household level. Solar pumps eliminate the use of gasoline or diesel fuel for running irrigation pumps (and, for electric pumps, the need for electricity produced by burning fossil fuels). They thus decouple fuel from food price shocks for farmers. At larger scales, increased adoption of solar pumps dampen the transmission from fuel to food price spikes.

Solar pumps might well be a force to reckon with. Their costs have declined dramatically and they can democratize energy access in regions that either remain off-grid, such as much of rural sub-Saharan Africa, or where the reliability of electrical grids is poor, such as Pakistan. Solar-powered groundwater irrigation can increase and stabilize food production during dry seasons and droughts and thus counteract the food price shocks stemming from many extreme climate events.

Moreover, recent analyses using lifecycle analysis suggest that the technology is now highly favorable financially in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the breakeven cost of a solar irrigation systems drawing groundwater is US$2.50 per watt peak in central and Southern Africa for most crops and water application methods, that is, at that solar irrigation installation cost, diesel pumps are not competitive.  If solar pump costs can be lowered further, to US$2 per watt peak, diesel pumps would lose their comparative advantage for half or more of irrigable crops in West and East Africa.

Moreover, as shown in Figure 2, the competitive edge of solar irrigation is growing further with climate change, as a result of complex interactions across higher solar irradiation levels, increased crop water demands and higher temperatures (the latter of which can negatively affect solar system performance). And this higher economic viability of solar over diesel pumps is irrespective of the food-security enhancing climate mitigation benefits of these systems.

Figure 2: Change in solar array cost per watt peak in sub-Saharan Africa under climate change: Areas in green indicate improved cost effectiveness of solar over diesel pumps by 2050 compared to the recent past

Source: Xie in preparation.

However, despite the low cost, climate resilience attributes, and increased agricultural productivity of solar irrigation pumps, few have been deployed in the low- and middle-income countries that would benefit most. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), as of 2019 less than 3% of the total solar water pump capacity in the world had been installed in Africa. Most solar pumps are in use in India, with 91% of the total installed MW, thanks to long-term government subsidies for the technology. But even in India, this translates only to about 300,000 pumps, compared to more than 5 million diesel pumps still in operation.

Thus, while the potential is large, implementation faces considerable finance and supply chain challenges. The USAID-supported Innovation Laboratory for Small-Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) has developed finance models that can expand inclusivity of access to this technology in Ghana and Mali, and the CGIAR NEXUS Gains Initiative is starting pilots to identify business and finance models in South Asia.

As with all technologies, the solar-powered irrigation pump is not a silver bullet that can strike at the heart of the water-energy-food-environment nexus on its own. But solar array by solar array, it can help farmers, and eventually all of us, to dampen recurrent fuel and interlinked food price spikes while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

USDA/FAS study shows irrigated fodder holds potential for livestock productivity in Ethiopia

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by Nicole Lefore

Research scientists at Texas A & M University have completed a study with funding from USDA Foreign Agricultural Service to expand on research also supported by ILSSI and the Livestock System Innovation Lab. Initially, researchers at TAMU, International Livestock Research Institute and Bahir Dar University mapped the suitability and household impacts for growing different types of fodder under irrigation in Ethiopia. Now with USAID FAS support, researchers have been able to analyze how climate variability affects irrigated fodder production in the future.

Using projected climate data for the 2040s and 2070s, the results for Robit (Amhara Region) and Lemo (SNNPR) suggest that while temperatures and evapotranspiration will increase, yields for both Napier and Vetch are also likely to increase. Socio-economic analysis suggests that farmers who irrigate fodder are likely to have higher income and more profitability than non-irrigators under climate change scenarios. Results point to good news for households that irrigate fodder, and more broadly.

Farmer feeds livestock in Ethiopia. Photo Credit: ILRI

The evidence and maps generated are significant for policy and planning: animal-source foods are important to nutritional security in Ethiopia, and irrigation can help to overcome shortages of fodder for livestock and dairy production, especially in the dry season. In addition, livestock is a major part of the overall agricultural sector; livestock is critical to employment, agricultural practices and household resilience. Under climate scenarios, irrigated fodder production could have a positive outcome at multiple scales through increasing available feed for the livestock sector and in turn, improving nutritional security through better access to dairy and meat. See the full Report.

The work utilized the Integrated Decision Support System (IDSS) – developed under the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) – to evaluate the integrated impacts of farming systems on production, environmental sustainability, and household income and nutrition. The project Principal Investigator is Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan, Professor, and Director, with co-PIs Dr. Yihun Dile Taddele, Dr. Abeyou Wale Worqlul and Dr. Jean-Claude Bizimana.

Upcoming study on the impact of solar-powered pumps in vegetable production in Mali

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by Rosaine Yegbemey, World Vegetable Center

Vegetable production in Mali has increased rapidly over the past decades. A lot of vegetable producers continue to irrigate their fields using watering cans and buckets, which is hard work and limits the scale of the operation. Nowadays, motorized water pumps including solar-powered pumps are increasingly available to Malian farmers, although adoption is still low. These pumps offer great potential to produce more, reduce drudgery, and reduce risk. However, scientific evidence is lacking on the potential benefits and costs, particularly among vegetable farmers. Such information is important to guide the scaling of the technology. 

Photo credit: Jean-baptiste Tignegre, WorldVeg

Against this backdrop and within the framework of the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) started an evaluation study to assess the multiple impacts of solar-powered pumps in irrigated vegetable production in Mali. The study will focus on aspects of gender, cost of production, risk, household income and quality of diets.

The study will use a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods. Qualitative methods such as focus group discussions and in-depth personal interviews will be used to collect information from local irrigation suppliers and farmers and understand what type of farmers are adopting solar-powered pumps, as well as their experiences with the technology. Quantitative methods will rely on a farm survey of adopters and non-adopters and apply a quasi-experimental evaluation design using Propensity Score Matching (PSM). The data collection is scheduled to start in late July or early August 2022 and first results should be available toward the end of the year.

Texas A&M University System Member