Farmer-led irrigation development in official statistics

Farmer-led irrigation development is extensive and increasing, yet remains largely unreported in official statistics.

In dominant narratives and statistical data, small adjustments made by farmers – for instance when supplying water to crops during dry spells in the rainy season – do not qualify as irrigation.

Statistics on irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa is compiled by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) using data supplied by national governments. The FAO’s AQUASTAT database records four main categories of irrigation and drainage development. These are:

  1. equipped for full control irrigation
  2. equipped for (partial control) irrigation
  3. water harvesting and
  4. non-equipped cultivation in flood recession areas and in wetlands (Table 1).

Although the categories are inclusive of a broad range of types and degrees of water control, in practice the recorded data are often incomplete.

There are a number of reasons for this:

  1. Data are generally obtained from agricultural census surveys, with the current version of AQUASTAT intended to be accurate for 2005 or as close to that year as possible. This makes currently available data over one decade old.
  2. The FAO defines ‘equipped for irrigation’ to be man-made activities or actions that control the water movement. While this definition includes irrigation using a bucket or watering can (see below), it does not explicitly include individual pumping systems or irrigation weirs made from stones and branches. Such irrigation technologies would often correspond to farmer-led irrigation development initiatives but are classified as ‘non-equipped’ and often go unrecorded by governments. The area cultivated with water harvesting techniques is not captured at all in the database and so is excluded.
  3. Although categories exist for “flood recession agriculture” and “non-equipped cultivated wetland areas and valley bottoms” only a few countries actually report cultivated areas in these categories. For example, in the period 2008-2017, only four out of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa reported on flood recession and only six reported on non-equipped cultivated wetlands.

So, although AQUASTAT categories formally provide space for documenting areas under farmer-led irrigation development, in practice these activities are often not recognised or recorded as irrigation by national government agencies. They are missing from AQUASTAT which reflects national statistics that tend to ignore these activities and focus on donor- or government-funded initiatives in the form of ‘schemes’.

Table 1. Categories of Irrigation and drainage development recognised by Aquastat

1. Area equipped for full control irrigation: 1A – Surface irrigation

furrow, borderstrip and basin irrigation (including submersion irrigation of rice). Manual irrigation using buckets or watering cans.

1B – Sprinklers

1C – Localized irrigation e.g. drip

 Reported in official data for formal schemes
2. Area equipped for irrigation

 

 2A – Equipped lowland areas

(i) Cultivated wetland and inland valley bottoms equipped with water control structures for irrigation and drainage (intake, canals, etc.);

(ii) Areas along rivers where cultivation occurs making use of structures built to retain receding flood water;

(iii) Developed mangroves and equipped delta areas.

2B – Spate irrigation (sometimes referred to as floodwater harvesting) uses the floodwaters of ephemeral streams (wadi).

 Reported in official data

3. Water harvesting (no data included on spatial extent)

 Areas where rainwater is collected and either directly applied to the cropped area, and stored in the soil profile or in a water reservoir Not reported in AQUASTAT
4A. Flood recession cropping area non-equipped Areas along rivers where cultivation occurs in the areas exposed as floods recede and where nothing is undertaken to retain the receding water. Not reported in official data
4B. Cultivated wetlands and inland valley bottoms non-equipped Wetland and inland valley bottoms that have not been equipped with water control structures but are used for cropping. They are often found in Africa. They will have limited (mostly traditional) arrangements to regulate water and control drainage. Not reported in official data

Source: FAO. 2016. AQUASTAT Main Database, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).