Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3.1: Common challenges affecting irrigation development in sub-
Saharan Africa
Challenges
Authors
Barnett (1984)
Awulachew et al. (2005) Shah et al.
(2002)
High Irrigation
development cost
New schemes involve huge
investment
high costs of investment,
high input cost;
High cost of
working capital;
Lack of access to
credit
Governments cut down on
operation cost by removing
credits for farmers
High interest rates on
loans
Poor linkages to
credit, input and
output
Unreliable
Markets and lack
of access
Artificial market pricing by
management of public
schemes
Marketing problems
Poor linkages to
market
Ineffective
Institutions
the problem of control,
balancing social, national
and producer benefit;
hierarchy and technical
requirements; adaptation to
farmer experiences
negative rates of returns;
management failures;
political difficulties
Improper
management
transfers; land
tenure issues;
institutional
vacuum
Choice of
technology and
maintenance of
infrastructure
Problems with adequate
and reliable water supply
technical flaws in
infrastructural design,
cracks, siltation and
seepage in reservoirs;
lack of maintenance and
spare parts of machinery
Expensive and
ineffective
mechanisation;
Low Productivity problems with production
units and processes
Damaged soils,
poor farmer
capacity
Shah et al. (2002), studying smallholder irrigation systems in sub-Saharan
Africa, identified the following challenges: mismanagement, high cost of
working capital, poor linkages to credit, input and output markets,
institutional vacuum, land tenure issues, improper management transfers,
damaged soils, expensive and ineffective mechanisation, poor farmer capacity
and lack of farmer entrepreneurship development.
The commonalities between the challenges observed by the various authors
are identified in Table 3.1.
Pests and diseases, high
fertilizer cost
 
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