Small holder farming and irrigation

The previous post identified the gender disparity of smallholder farmers, which highlighted constraints in the resources of land title, credits, inputs in technology and farmer education. This post will identify the impacts of sustainable irrigation schemes on women and how the gender bias for agriculture could be overcome. 

Figure 1 Rural Mozambique, World Bank Funded Irrigation Systems (World Bank, 2010)

The World Bank has supported the Sustainable Irrigation Development Project by the Mozambique government. The area in Vanduzi fields is irrigated by canal using gravity for water on the fields. This has helped with crop production all year round, especially in the drier seasons. Farmers are also able to grow new cash growing produce other than staple foods, such as vegetables and baby corn on the newly irrigated land.

According to Zabeta Jone, a 51-year old female farmer who has benefitted from the irrigation scheme said that her farm resided 7.5km from the valley and the journey to collecting water to sustain farming on the plot of land was often perilous and insufficient. With the new irrigation system in place, she was able to acquire 3 extra plots of land and the income derived from agriculture allowed her to provide her sons with primary and university education (WorldBank, 2017).

In the adoption of labor saving technologies in Figure 2.0, it can be seen that the use of electrical pumps are mainly accounted for Male Headed Households of 21%, meanwhile only 3% of Female Headed Households use electrical pumps. Majority of Female headed Households continues to rely on using manual methods that are lower in technology and tend to be more laborious, such as buckets for obtaining water (Van Koppen, 2012).

Figure 2 Adoption of technology by household type, regions in Ghana (Van Koppen, 2012)

This reflects the challenges in equal access to technology for irrigation. For instance, in Ghana, pumps belong to the top 20% quintile of income residents (CGIAR, 2019). Furthermore, majority of female farmers are reliant on rain-fed agriculture which is an unreliable source as it varies with seasonality. This questions the accessibility of women as they are amongst the highest composition of the rural poor.

In closing the gendered gap in agriculture, development projects have increased women’s accessibility to technology for irrigation. For instance, KickStart International developed the “Money Maker Hip Pump” which is human powered shown in figure 3, these are sold to farmers in the local private sector which led to a 400% increase in the generation of income (Micallef,2016).

Figure 3 Kick Starter’s Money Maker Hip Pump (Micallef, 2016) 

Furthermore, the inclusion of micro-finance schemes is imperative in increasing women’s access to irrigation technologies. The difficulty in securing finance is a barrier to women having access to productive inputs in farming and banks further discourage women to secure credits by setting high interest rates. schemes is imperative in increasing women’s access to irrigation technologies. For instance, Kickstarter is trial running the micro-savings and micro-leasing option towards pump ownership (Kickstarter, 2019). 

Kuru Mengersa is a widow and mother in Ethiopia, and by purchasing a pump with micro credit with 3 other farmers, micro-crediting has enabled her to overcome the barrier in irrigation technology access (CGIAR, 2019).

I also believe that in closing the gender gap for small-scale irrigation, one should look beyond targeting technology to women and start at a household level. This is as there is no central “decision making organization” in small scale irrigation, hence falls outside governance and women’s role in the management of small scale irrigation is decided on a household level. There are instances where pumps arrives to a household, and men become de facto owners of it (Lefore, 2019).

Household approaches includes instilling the consciousness of including women in agriculture management decisions, hence to include women’s uses for irrigation. For example, in a small-holder’s irrigation scheme in Kenya, women wanted communal spaces for dish washing and clothes, but men wanted places for watering cattle but because of the under representation of women in the Water Users Association, the needs of women was not taken into account in the irrigation project (IFAD, 2012).

Small-scale irrigation is important in producing high yields, crops diversification and empowering women in income generation and reducing the use of time spent in water collection. Henceforth, women need to be mobilized in securing access to land and technology and their importance in the management of small-scale irrigation must also be recognized by men on a household level through facilitation and training to tackle the socio-economic stigma. In empowering women with equal access to inputs of production and support on a household level to sustain small-scale irrigation, women can produce just as much or more yields than male farmers and further overcome poverty and hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa.