Investing in Smallholder Irrigation

Smallholder irrigated horticulture has
proven to be a viable and attractive option for poor farmers
in developing countries. This paper relates two important
lessons learned: low-cost productive technologies must be
available to smallholders in terms of both location and
price and must correspond to their needs, and the importance
of a market-led approach for financing technology
acquisition. The paper concludes with the following
recommendations: use privately owned technologies to avoid
collective action problems and reliance on government
assistance -- this increases the likelihood that irrigation
assets will be maintained; consider simple technologies
such as treadle pumps and drip irrigation kits -- these
self-select for poor households; ensure that a minimum set
of resource and market conditions are satisfied before
promoting irrigation; develop supply chains that are
dominated by private entrepreneurs such as pump
manufacturers and repair shops; rethink the definition of
smallholder-irrigated agriculture in view of market
gardening -- many farmers, particularly the poorest,
irrigate plots smaller than one-tenth of a hectare;
recognize that rapid introduction of mechanized technologies
can easily overwhelm a poor smallholder in terms of capacity
-- scaling up to mechanized pumps has been demonstrated
successfully but may take time; and make sure there are
markets for the outputs, or help create them, to ensure that
increased production is profitable.