Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

economic growth

How connecting innovators and implementers can catalyze solar irrigation scaling in Ghana

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This post is written by Joseph Isaiah Mensah, Manager, USAID SSI Project, PEG Ghana and was first publish on agrilinks.org.


A farmer uses solar power to irrigate his crops. Photo credit: PEG Africa.

Solar power has the potential to revolutionize water use in agriculture, providing an attractive means for farmers to irrigate their crops. This is especially the case in sub-Saharan Africa, which has among the lowest electrification access in the world and irrigation potential in dry-land regions of an additional 6-14 million hectares, 84 percent of which is small scale irrigation.

Private sector companies are eager to capitalize on this potential by expanding the market for small scale solar irrigation. For these companies, serving small scale irrigators, who have traditionally been perceived as high risk, can be profitable if the right business models are applied. 

PEG Africa was founded in 2015 to deliver affordable energy to the 150 million people in West Africa with no access to electricity. Based in Ghana and with operations in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal, we initially offered solar home systems using a pay-as-you-go financing model that enables customers — often resource-poor farmers in remote locations — to pay for and eventually fully own their solar energy products through monthly installments. These installments can be sculpted, meaning farmers pay lower amounts in lean seasons and higher amounts in harvest seasons. Financing is supported by after-sales, agronomic and market access services, helping farmers to optimize the return on their investment and reduce the payment default risk.

Barriers to irrigation adoption and scaling

In 2019, we decided to add solar water pumps to our product line, using the same financing and after-sales model. The decision followed a series of field-based tests we conducted in Ghana to verify the suitability of the technology as well as market surveys to understand demand for solar pumps among small scale irrigators in rural and peri-urban areas.

The results showed that there is a considerable level of demand as the solar pumps offer an affordable and efficient alternative to conventional diesel pumps, which are costly to maintain, have a shorter lifespan, and can have adverse health and environmental effects. Moreover, we were aware that women farmers tend to prefer solar pumps to other water-lifting technologies because they decrease the labor required to extract water for domestic and other uses such as agriculture.  

These findings served as a strong basis for PEG Africa to venture into the sale of solar pumps, although we continue to encounter significant barriers to the adoption and scaling of the technology.

We identified two main challenges. The first is limited input and output market linkages (poorly developed distribution channels, inadequate input supply, information asymmetry with regard to determining price, and securing markets for produce), which ultimately constrain farmers’ productivity and profitability. The second is gender-based constraints to information and financial resources that affect women’s ability to invest in solar irrigation technologies.

De-risking private sector engagement in small scale irrigation

A new agreement aims to facilitate the development of innovative solutions to these challenges by de-risking private sector engagement in small-scale irrigation. Initiated by the USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), the agreement comes with a monetary award of USD 725,000 to support the trial of new business and financing models over three years.

Following a call for proposals, PEG Africa was announced as the recipient of the award on August 27, 2020 during the second Farmer-Led Irrigation–Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue event in Ghana. Hosted by IWMI, which leads ILSSI’s scaling research, the dialogues bring together relevant actors, including the private sector, to kickstart system-level collaboration on scaling small scale irrigation. 

Pitching contests target next-generation innovators

To complement the award, IWMI identified pitching contests as a novel way to build capacity in the private sector. Targeting young professionals and recent graduates, the contests aim to close the research-private sector divide, drive innovation, and stimulate entrepreneurship. The first contest is being held in October 2020, and two winners will be selected to undertake a paid internship with PEG Africa in Ghana. Additional contests will be organized over the next three years.

In determining the winners, the selection committee will look for solutions that bridge specific knowledge and capacity gaps within PEG Africa. Currently, these relate to business innovations that address the barriers to equitable solar pump access and adoption. In addition, we anticipate that the interns will help us to establish a framework to track the impact of pump use on farmers through return-on-investment, gross margin and cost-benefit studies.

These innovations will contribute to the formulation of a profitable and sustainable business model for our solar pumps. At the same time, the interns will gain valuable private sector work experience as well as an appreciation for the private sector’s role in scaling development solutions.

Solar irrigation is a relatively new addition to PEG Africa’s offering but one that strongly aligns with our vision of affordable energy for those who need it. We are excited to see what innovations the interns will bring to our company and how we can leverage our established infrastructure and market knowledge to test and implement them.

Irrigation helps Ethiopian women make more of milk and other dairy products

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Ethiopian women have begun growing irrigated fodder crops to expand their opportunities in the dairy value chain, winning income, nutrition, and climate benefits. Coming up on this year’s International Day of Rural Women, we hear from a couple of these front-runners:

“I have been sharing my experiences with men and women farmers, and, over the past couple of years, I have given fodder planting materials to about 50 other farmers for free. I advise women that they can increase their incomes by selling milk and other dairy products if they upgrade their local cows and start growing irrigated fodder crops.”

This testimonial, given by Mulu Melese, a farmer who lives in Zato Shodera village, Kededa Gamela district in southern Ethiopia with her husband and children, captures many of the benefits springing from irrigated fodder cultivation. Not only can this practice boost farmers’ incomes, nutrition, and climate resilience, but it has also spurred rural women like Mulu Melese to engage in dairy value chains and improve their livelihoods.

Growing irrigated fodder crops has enabled Mulu Melese to start selling more dairy products. Photo: Tigist German/ILRI.

Since 2015, scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)—working under the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI)—have collaborated with farmers in the northern and southern regions of Ethiopia and introduced them to irrigated fodder production. Since then, the number of farmers adopting the practice in the project sites has grown from less than 20 to more than 700.

Why women win when livestock productivity soars

In Ethiopia, farmers in rural areas both grow crops and raise livestock. Yet, despite the livestock sub-sector providing employment to 70 percent of rural dwellers, productivity has remained low. Shortage of good quality feed for livestock remains a major challenge.

The low performance of the livestock sector especially impacts women and children, who, traditionally, carry the responsibility of raising livestock around the home. Women are tasked with finding, preparing, and bringing feed to the animals, milking, and cleaning barns. Collecting adequate fodder and bringing it to the animals is what requires the most time and workload, particularly during the dry season when only poor-quality crop residues are available. As climate change impacts intensify, an even longer dry season could lead to crops failing and severe shortages of livestock feed.

However, women’s traditional responsibility for a family’s livestock also means that they stand to gain when livestock productivity increases.

Growing irrigated fodder crops, such as Napier grass, which ensures a steady supply of livestock fodder. Photo: Fikadu Tessema/ILRI.

ILSSI scientists found this to be true when working with farmers to introduce a combination of new practices. New irrigation technologies, such as solar-powered pumps, make it easier to grow irrigated fodder crops, such as Napier grass, which ensures a steady supply of livestock fodder all year round.

A project partner, the Andassa Livestock Research Center, has also provided farmers with crossbred cows that produce more and better milk than traditional breeds, enabling farmers to increase their profits. So far, the results have been very promising, not least for rural women.

Tales of two women show big benefits

Mulu Melese recalls when she started producing irrigated fodder. At that time, she reports, she owned two lactating cows, but was unable to feed them adequately due to lack of good-quality forage on her farm. She recounts that because there was not enough feed, the cows were unable to produce enough milk for her family and for sale.

After she started growing irrigated fodder crops and giving the new, higher-quality fodder to her animals, the milk production almost doubled immediately. This subsequently increased the income, nutritional health, and living conditions of her whole family.

Mogninet Fentea, who lives in Robit Bata village in Bahir Dar Zuria district in the northern part of the country, tells of a similar experience. She and her husband started producing irrigated fodder in 2017, when they were struggling to find feed for their lactating cows and draft oxen. Since then, they have seen a steady improvement in the productivity of their animals, with their cows giving more milk and their draft oxen keeping in good condition when used for preparing their land. As a result, their household income has increased, and they have been able to cover their children’s school expenses relatively easily.

Mogninet Fentea adds that she and her husband decided to expand their fodder plot by uprooting some of their Khat plants—a narcotic plant traditionally used as a cash crop—because they were convinced that the fodder crops are important for the household.

She said that the feed trough they constructed for their cattle, as recommended by ILSSI scientists, have helped them reduce the labor required and have given the children spare time to concentrate on their learning. Scientists estimated that improved feed troughs and fodder choppers reduced feed waste by more than 30 percent and increased animals’ feed intake. Finally, a solar-powered pump has also eased Mogninet Fentea’s water lifting and irrigation work.

Farmers cut, chop, and place the green fodder in the feed trough, mixed with other local feed resources, and leave animals to feed and rest without a need for frequent observation by the family. Photo: Fikadu Tessema/ILRI.

A robust market must underpin long-term gains

Mulu Melese, Mogninet Fentea, and many women like them are already enjoying the benefits of irrigated fodder production, but are also interested in expanding their practice and building further business opportunities. Indeed, the gendered norms, roles, and responsibilities within the livestock value chains present opportunities—but also challenges—for rural women.

First, women are traditionally the ones who handle the milk produced by the family’s livestock and manage the income generated from this activity. While they regularly supply fluid milk to a dairy cooperative to generate income, part of the milk is usually processed into butter, cheese, and buttermilk. Women sell the butter in the local market, while the cheese and buttermilk are wholly consumed by the household, improving the family’s nutritional health. In this way, engaging in the dairy sector offers women opportunities to gain control over income and power to influence their family’s health.

Second, in the fodder cultivation process, women are socially expected to fetch water and irrigate fodder plots. This means that new time- and labor-saving technologies, such as improved irrigation systems and forage varieties that require minimum water and nutrient input, benefit women in particular. They help reduce the demand on women’s time, allowing them the opportunity to explore other income-generating activities.

Lastly, helping women access improved breeds of livestock, which efficiently convert good fodder into good milk returns, is critical for the irrigated fodder practice to be lucrative and sustainable for rural women. Ensuring profitability is key for farmers to overcome some of the challenges standing in the way of further expanding irrigated fodder production, such as investing in improved climate-smart breeds and seeds as well as labor-saving technologies.

Now, ILSSI scientists are working to address these barriers by collaborating with dairy cooperatives and national partners to develop the fodder value chain and establish a reliable market for milk and dairy products, forage seeds, and irrigation technologies in the context of climate variability.

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.

Texas A&M University System Member