Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
I
MPACT OF
I
NTENSIFYING
I
RRIGATION
D
E
V
ELOPMENT AND
I
MPLICATIONS FOR
S
USTAINABLE
W
ATER
R
ESOURCES
M
ANAGEMENT IN THE
W
HITE
V
OLTA SUB
-
BASIN
8.1 I
NTRODUCTION
Global efforts aimed at ensuring food sufficiency by increasing staple food
production have adopted irrigated farming as one of the main strategies.
Approximately 70% of the world's irrigated land lies in Asia, where it
accounts for almost 35% of cultivated land. In sub-Saharan Africa less than
5% of the cultivated area is irrigated (Molden et al., 2007). Regions such as
South-East Asia have almost exhausted their irrigation development
potential, making the potential irrigable land in Sub-Saharan Africa a major
hope for the world in terms of feeding the future population (FAO, 2006b).
Meanwhile, irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa has been slow,
resulting from several unresolved factors. However, there are encouraging
signs of isolated cases of successful irrigation development across sub-Saharan
Africa which serve as examples for upscaling irrigation.
One of such cases is the private-led irrigation development in the White
Volta sub-basin using shallow groundwater and reservoirs for vegetable
production to feed the urban population of southern Ghana. The current
irrigation activities are seasonal and sustainable. Shallow groundwater
abstraction for irrigation takes place in the dry-season. In the event where
farmers are not successful in abstracting shallow groundwater they abandon
the irrigation for that season. This activity does not have negative impact on
long-term sustainability on the groundwater resources of the basin since the
aquifers are refilled during the rainy season. However, there is potential for
the introduction of new irrigation technologies such as tubewells in the sub-
basin and their further expansion. Some shallow groundwater irrigation
farmers have expressed interest in acquiring technologies such as permanent
tubewells for irrigation. Such technology can be applied in almost any place
within the catchment and throughout the whole year unlike the current
technologies. This has implications for the long-term sustainability of the
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