Agriculture Reference
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in the computation of the water productivity since it was released from the
reservoir; however the food production of the downstream users outside the
scheme is not factored in the computations. This is because the excess water
from the Vea scheme is considered as having completed its productive use in
Vea. Therefore whatever the excess water is used for including irrigation,
downstream of the Vea scheme is not counted as a productivity of the Vea
scheme.
Comparing the water productivity of the schemes with attainable levels of
water productivity (Table 4.6) shows that productivity levels at both
schemes are generally low.
4.4.2
Financial Sustainability of the Irrigation
Schemes
Sustainable development was defined in the Brundtland report 'Our
Common Future' WCED (1987) as ''development that meets the needs of the
present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.'' For an irrigation scheme to be sustainable the
financial sustainability is equally as important as all other factors of
sustainability. As put by Savenije and van der Zaag (2000) ‚only if the
financial costs are recovered can an activity remain sustainable.‛ For an
irrigation scheme to be sustainable, it should be able to generate enough
funds to cover its operational cost. This section analyses the financial
sustainability of Vea and Tono irrigation schemes based on the principles
quoted above.
Budget and Revenue of ICOUR
The 2008 corperate plan of ICOUR, shows that irrigation depends heavily on
government support. Eighty-one percent of the funds needed to support the
annual budget of ICOUR is from the government with 19% being internally
generated funds (IGF). This implies that both Vea and Tono irrigation
schemes are not self sustaining financially and thus the government continues
to subsidise the operations and maintenance costs of the schemes after 35
and 25 years of operation, respectively. The annual budget of both schemes is
US$1,185,000 with the government contributing about US$965,000 annually.
If the government does not provide all the needed funds for the budget,
several aspects of the irrigation scheme will suffer leading to further
inefficiencies and reduced productivity of the scheme.
The internally generated funds of ICOUR are generated from the following:
water levy, land preparation, silos sales, equipment hire, contracts and guest
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