Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

Innovation Lab For Small Scale Irrigation

private sector

Supporting solar irrigation companies to break down markets and lift up smallholder farmers in Ghana

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byThai Thi Minh, Senior Researcher, and Abena Ofosu, Senior Research Officer, Innovation Scaling, IWMI

In the Upper East region of Ghana, most smallholder farmers still rely on watering cans and buckets for irrigating the tomato, pepper, onion, and other vegetable crops they grow during the dry season. This type of irrigation is both labor intensive and time consuming, while more advanced irrigation technologies, such as motorized pumps, could boost farmers’ incomes, improve their health and resilience, and increase the supply of nutritious foods.

In the past, farmers in this area have used both electric irrigation pumps, running off the electric grid when available, and petrol- and diesel-powered motorized pumps, but both options are costly. Now, solar-powered irrigation pumps are emerging as an attractive, affordable alternative, but these kinds of pumps are not yet readily available in the Upper East region.

Solar-powered irrigation pumps are emerging as an attractive, affordable solution. Photo: Thai Thi Minh/IWMI.

That’s why the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), through the USAID-supported Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), has been supporting irrigation equipment suppliers in Ghana to expand into this new market, including by breaking the market down into distinct segments of farmers that could access and benefit from solar-powered irrigation pumps in different ways.

Market segmentation for solar-powered irrigation pumps

Ghana’s Upper East region offers an attractive market for companies selling solar-powered irrigation pumps, with opportunities for them to establish sales outlets, expand customer bases, and reach and improve profitability by making their products accessible at the doorsteps of farmers.

These opportunities were discussed at the recently held third meeting of a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform in Ghana, established by IWMI and ILSSI to bring together stakeholders from government, research organizations, irrigation equipment suppliers, financial services, and value chain actors to innovate and facilitate the expansion of small scale irrigation.

Stakeholders from government, research organizations, irrigation equipment suppliers, financial services, and value chain actors met to discuss opportunities and challenges. Photo: Thai Thi Minh/IWMI.

Precise market segmentation is key for companies expanding into new markets. It allows them to plan for and use diverse business models to reach different and diverse groups of farmers. However, few solar pump companies have assessed and targeted market segments as they have established operations in Ghana.

IWMI scientists therefore undertook a market segmentation exercise within the Upper East region, basing it on farmers’ access to land, water, irrigation and production arrangements, financial capital and potential, and product preferences. As a result, four market segments were identified, namely resource-rich individual farmers, resource-limited individual farmers, farmer groups, and mobile farmers who during the dry season move from their residential area to irrigate fields close to publicly funded irrigation schemes.

Understanding these segments is useful for companies because each group of potential customers has distinct options and needs, particularly regarding what type of pump is suitable for them, whether they have capital for the investment on hand, and whether their preference is to make a one-time payment or to access some type of financing.

Creating opportunities for companies and farmers

During the meeting, held on held on May 4, 2021, Osman Sahanoom Kulendi, managing director of Pumptech, a distributor of solar-powered irrigation pumps, shared insights into how they have segmented the market for their range of LORENTZ PS2 solar irrigation pumps, which they offer bundled with what they call PAY-OWN financing, a type of asset-based financing that can give farmers access to solar pumps without the usual collateral or credit history required for a loan.

Pumptech’s findings build on IWMI’s initial assessment of the market segments in the region, and have been validated and refined through several events, organizing by IWMI, that brought together agricultural extension agents, farmers, community volunteers, traders, borehole dealers and pump repairers, researchers, and others from within the region.

Kulendi stressed an urgent need to explore the region’s market potential. He mentioned that establishing a sales and distribution network is one way to make solar-powered pumps accessible to farmers:

“We have been trying to set up an office here in the Upper East since last year. We have not done it yet because we had not explored the potential, especially in irrigation. But with the potential that we have explored since we visited places in the region [with IWMI], I bet you by the end of the year, we will have a physical presence here. IWMI has created this opportunity to bring us together to interact with you. We would also like to encourage you to bring more of us together again to realize our potential,” he said.

While smallholder farmers in the Upper East region are potential customers for solar-powered pumps, their interest will depend on the ease of access, user-friendliness of pumps, whether the pumps meet their needs and preferences, and whether they are economically attractive investments. The multi-stakeholder dialogues meetings, which are expected to continue over the coming years, are valuable for private sector companies to interact with each other and others in the sector, to facilitate linkages between actors, strengthen information exchange, and stimulate innovation.

Market segmentation benefits go beyond business

For private sector businesses, market segmentation helps identifying needs and interests of various groups, such as the segments identified above as well as for example women, youth, and persons with disabilities. With better market segmentation, companies can save time, while reducing cost and effort, when attempting to reach new customers in target markets. In this way, market segmentation indirectly contributes to economic growth in the agricultural sector due to the increase in use of mechanized irrigation technologies.

What’s more, market segmentation can help governments, practitioners, and irrigation equipment suppliers design products specifically targeting women. Such gender-sensitive product design might consider the various water-related roles and schedules of women farmers and could imply designing pumps that are portable, light, and easy to use for multiple purposes. Women farmers prefer solar technology that can be used not only for pumping water for irrigation, but also for livestock watering, and domestic and household hygiene activities. A well-segmented market also makes clear the need to design products that are within the income levels of the target groups, such as women.

In this way, segmenting markets to target women specifically could benefit women in various ways. It might, for example, allow women to access solar-powered irrigation pumps that could improve on-farm production and income, contribute to nutrition security within the household, and reduce the time women spend on irrigation.

Finally, market segmentation could help government and non-governmental organizations plan interventions, allocate resources, facilitate impact assessments, promote inclusive development, and obtain insights that can lead to best-fit innovations and better services for all Ghanaians.

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The multi-stakeholder dialogue meeting in Ghana was third in a series of events convening stakeholders from the small scale irrigation sector to discuss challenges and collaborate on collective solutions. It was followed by a similar meeting in Ethiopia, which was held on May 27, 2021, and co-convened by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and 2030 Water Resources Group. Reports on both events will be published soon.

Innovating for financial inclusion: Strengthening asset-based financing for women farmers

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by Thai Thi Minh, Senior Researcher, Scaling Innovations, International Water Management Institute, and Nicole Lefore, Director, The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Innovation, Texas A & M.

Providing asset-based financing is considered an innovation that can enable people ‘at the bottom of the pyramid’, including women farmers, to overcome credit barriers. In sub-Saharan Africa, several solar irrigation pump companies are attempting to fill a widespread credit gap by offering asset-based financing, through which they essentially provide farmers with a loan to purchase a pump, for which the pump itself serves as security.

The advantage of asset-based financing is that it can give farmers access to solar pumps without the usual collateral or credit history required for a loan. This enables them to intensify production and increase their incomes. Farmers pay back the loans in installments, as the pump allows them to increase their incomes, in what is known as a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) approach. PAYGO also sometimes includes follow-up training and regular product servicing during the period of repayment, which also fills the need for information and after-sales services.

Companies are benefitting from asset-based financing by expanding their markets, while farmers benefit from avoiding the usual credit barriers. But, while innovative, the question is whether asset-based financing is also inclusive when it comes to solar irrigation pumps?

Women in sub-Saharan Africa play a critical role in food security, providing as much as half of agricultural labor and playing significant roles in agriculture and livestock sectors. Yet, gender-based constraints to financial resources—such as loans, formal banking services, and ownership over land and other resources—negatively affect women’s ability to invest in productive assets, such as solar pumps.

Recent research by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), highlights that women seeking credit face more significant supply and demand constraints, such as a lack of information, than men.

A group of farmers inspect newly received solar-powered irrigation pumps. Photo: IWMI.

While many development projects focus on improving women’s access to credit through village savings and loans associations or support through micro-finance institutions, such modes are either insufficient, unprofitable, or fail to reach resource-poor women and men farmers wanting to invest in productive assets. That’s why we are exploring how well asset-based financing enables women to invest in irrigation.

Gender gaps in current credit assessment tools

Companies considering providing asset-based financing to clients typically use credit scorecards to determine whether the client is creditworthy.

Such scorecards or assessment tools are used by a company’s credit review officers to assess commercial aspects of financing and to give a potential client a risk score and a consistency rating. If a potential client is assessed as low risk, and therefore qualifies for credit, the results of the assessment can also be used to set the terms of repayment. In short, credit assessments are a critical tool that aims to reduce the risks associated with asset-based financing for both the loan providers and for clients.

Within the ILSSI project, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has reviewed credit scorecard criteria and the credit assessment processes being applied by private solar irrigation suppliers in sub-Saharan Africa offering PAYGO or some form of asset-based financing. The initial review suggests women may still be excluded because the scorecard criteria may be inherently biased.

While credit risk assessment tools are to predict the likelihood of repayment, they are not necessarily designed to be gender sensitive. In fact, few of the irrigation equipment companies with which ILSSI has engaged target women farmers as potential clients for solar irrigation pumps.

Few irrigation equipment companies target women farmers as potential customers. This despite women’s essential roles in agriculture. Photo: IWMI.

We found that typical criteria in credit assessments include access to services and amenities, primary income-generating activity and income, household expenses, and water availability and utility, as well as the client’s farm and farming practices, existing credit access, and financial savings. In this way, use of resource ownership and income as criteria to assess the potential risk of agricultural clients marginalizes most women, as they tend to be resource poor.

At the same time, scorecard criteria exclude the factors known to influence women’s ability to achieve investment returns and repay credit, such as off-farm income, livelihood diversification, group membership and social networks, and financial management. Women farmers may not have the level of income or asset ownership to meet a threshold for low-risk financing, but women farmers may still have strong financial management capacity, awareness about availability of various financial services, and financial literacy. Women farmers generally also have diverse on- and off-farm livelihood activities, which a credit scorecard may not account for. We propose that including these income-generating activities would help better estimate the credit worthiness of women farmers.

Moreover, credit assessment criteria appear to miss the significance of group membership and social networks as well as socio-cultural aspects, such as power relations within households, women’s mobility, inheritance systems, and other socio-cultural relations that influence women’s access to resources such as finance, markets and extension, or information sources.

Creating equal opportunities for women farmers

We are now collaborating with private-sector solar irrigation equipment partners to develop gender-sensitive credit scorecard criteria. The gender-sensitive tool focuses on both the criteria components and the process. Criteria currently excluded, but that could influence women farmers’ ability to obtain and maintain PAYGO loans, will be brought into credit assessments. These additional criteria should also help to develop business models for asset-based lending to groups, which would allow women to pool their resources into a joint asset. ILSSI’s private sector partners will test the application of the new criteria in Ghana and Ethiopia.

We will be supporting continued development of the credit assessments in parallel with capacity development innovations. In Ghana, ILSSI is supporting innovation internships that are embedding young and promising researchers into company activities, including fieldwork on business and financing models to reach women farmers. ILSSI activities in Ethiopia include a ‘hack-a-thon initiative’ by IWMI and Bahir Dar University to develop an app-based digital scorecard to ease the data collection and analysis and improve the assessment algorithm.

Asset-based financing is seen as a high potential solution to credit constraints, building on the strengths of the private sector in development, but if poorly designed, this innovation could inadvertently deepen women’s lack of access to credit for productive assets. Reversely, if credit assessment tools are adapted to assess the creditworthiness of women farmers more accurately, there is potential for the approach to benefit both women and men farmers as well as private sector companies in a growing solar irrigation market.

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.

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.

Texas A&M University System Member