Innovating in a dynamic technical context - Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security - page 110

found that village-based seed enterprises were needed to produce and dis-
tribute the project's new varieties (Grando et al., 2010). (We cannot confirm
their success and institutional sustainability.) Project PN1 in the Limpopo
worked with fertilizer sellers to make fertilizer available in smaller bags, which
smallholders could afford (Dimes et al., 2005). Project PN7 in the coastal
Ganges, selected salt-tolerant varieties for salt-affected areas. It needed farmers
to participate to select varieties and for less stringent rules to release them
(Ismail, 2009; CPWF, 2012g). Goat auctions and pens in project Limpopo 3 in
Zimbabwe discussed above were an institutional innovation that transformed
goat farming and the livelihoods of many poor families.
Community action
There are more examples in which community action was needed to enable
technical change. The success of QSMAS discussed above depended on
community self-enforcement of an absolute ban on burning residues. This is
because one fire can destroy the benefits of QSMAS for the whole community
(PN15). Water systems designed for multiple uses are more productive than
those designed for single uses as discussed above. Community involvement is
necessary, however, for the successful management of multiple use systems
(PN28).
Project PN35 in Bangladesh focused on improving community-managed
fish culture in areas that flooded in the wet season but were used by many
smallholders for cropping in the dry season. Improved technologies, such as
stocking with fingerlings, mesh at water exits to reduce escapes, and careful
timing of fish harvest to give time for the fish to grow helped increase
productivity. Communities introduced practices that gave more equitable access
to the fisheries; landless poor have unlimited fishing rights, but only with hook
and line, not with nets. The success of these practices, however, was dependent
on communities enforcing their own rules, and maintaining lease rights to the
seasonally flooded areas (Sheriff et al., 2010; CPWF, 2012e).
See Chapter 6 for more on community action.
Policies
CPWF projects emphasized the importance of links between policy, insti-
tutions and technology.
Rapid increase of smallholder crops irrigated by groundwater irrigation
in West Bengal, discussed above, came from government policy changes.
Informed by research, the government eliminated pumping permits and
fostered electricity connections (PN42, PN60). Modeling in project PN10 on
land-use zoning reduced conflicts between rice growers and shrimp producers
in coastal Vietnam. The research led to changes in government policies to use
the land-use zoning identified by the modeling (CPWF, 2012d). Zero-till drills
adapted to the conditions of dryland farm systems in the Yellow River in