Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
reducing the total productive land of both schemes. Reasons for poor
maintenance of infrastructure have been linked to lack of finance. This is
because initially beneficiary farmers did not pay for services rendered to
them until after some time when government could not sustain the huge
financial burden of operation and maintenance. Initial decisions not to
charge for services resulted in lack of routine maintenance of infrastructure
since government support could only pay for salaries of staff and little for
maintenance works. The situation has aggravated beyond the capabilities of
the management and requires significant support to revamp both irrigation
schemes.
The lack of credit and reliable markets for farmers is a serious disincentive to
every farmer who wants to improve production. Taking the prevailing
financial state of the beneficiary farmers into consideration, the irrigation
schemes can only benefit from the maximum potential of the farmers if
farmers are resourced with credits or farm inputs at affordable cost and also
assured of reliable markets for their products at good marginal values. Only
then can farmers expand production and invest in their irrigation activities.
These conditions have been achieved for rice farmers but not for vegetable
farmers. Employing similar strategies applied to the rice production to
vegetable farming will improve overall productivity for both schemes.
Finally, the institutional lapses shown by the management of the Vea and
Tono schemes in addressing land-tenure issues, collecting water levies, water
management, project revenue, and farmer participation, all have contributed
to the poor performance of both schemes. Even though there are plans to
improve farmer participation in management, this may not be enough to
resolve all the institutional challenges affecting the schemes. The current
trend of irrigation management reforms which has yielded some positive
results for some irrigation schemes may be considered in addressing the
institutional challenges confronting both schemes (Aw and Diemer, 2005;
Johnson, 1997).
In summary it has been proven from the case study on Vea and Tono
irrigation schemes that developing a large-scale public irrigation scheme
demands that detailed studies and stakeholder participation be conducted to
forestall possible negative consequences. Secondly, developing an irrigation
scheme is not as easy as achieving the desired productivity and maintaining
sustainability. As described by Plusquellec (2002) the performance of
irrigation projects is determined by a combination of physical, institutional
and policy factors. The success of the irrigation scheme is as strong as the
weakest success factor. Thus attention must be given to strengthening weak
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