Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
land as much as they could afford. Some farmers purchased motorized pumps
to enable them to pump water directly from small reservoirs and for
conveyance to land they personally developed outside the officially developed
areas, by which they ‚jump‛ the water queue
(Figure 7.5b
). In other areas
farmers looked for access to groundwater sources for irrigation farming
(Figure 7.5a
).
Figure 7.5: a) Temporal shallow wells being used for tomato production; b)
Motorized pumps being used at small-reservoirs for irrigation.
Availability of appropriate irrigation technologies
The availability of appropriate technologies is another significant factor that
has influenced the trend of irrigation development in the study area. As
farmers sought for alternative irrigation technologies they ended up
improvising some locally available technologies which aided them in
abstracting and applying water to their crops. The most prevalent of these
technologies is the rope and bucket. This technology aided them in
harnessing shallow groundwater for irrigation. The advantages of using this
technology are that it is cheap, locally available and does not need skill in its
application. This made it easily adaptable by the local farmers. Also the
availability of motorized pumps on the local market encouraged farmers to
explore the options of riverine pump irrigation. This also gained grounds.
The initial capital cost is relatively high compared to other technologies;
thus, it is not as common as the rope and bucket.
Favourable land-tenure system
Irrigation farming in the area is done mainly by the youth. Most lands are
owned by the household heads with the majority of them being elderly men.
The existing land-tenure arrangement in the study area enables the youth to
hire land on temporal bases for dry-season irrigation. This also enables
Search WWH ::
Custom Search