The way engineers are taught about irrigation is based on historic principles. Europeans with colonies in Africa and Asia implemented certain ways of doing irrigation for very specific reasons, and these principles are still being taught today.
In colonial times irrigation was used as a way to exert power because the control of land use was influenced by the provision of water. Different colonial powers had different guiding principles. The Dutch maximised the value of crops produced on a given area of land, while the English system maximised value of crops produced for a given amount of water.
This resulted in different technologies because the Dutch system required quick adjustment and measurement, with daily control by an official; whereas the English prioritised variety in the canal flow and a more distributed system.
In the mid-20th century problems arising from blueprint approaches to irrigation design included low performance, accumulation of silt in canals, salinisation, and negative gender effects.
The main responses to this included:
- giving management control to a group of farmers (in jargon referred to as the tertiary level) so they could use the system and resolve problems as they manifested themselves;
- the introduction of water rotation schedules at the tertiary level based on crop water requirements;
- paying attention to organisational structures, for example establishing a Water Users Association to improve farmer organisation at various levels;
- training farmers to use the technology as envisaged by the design engineers.
At that time, the prevalent idea was that farmers could be trained how to use pre-designed irrigation systems and that organising farmers in groups would support these efforts. This implied that a farmer’s use of irrigation could be shaped to the system; rather than the system being responsive to the needs and desires of the farmer.