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Exploring the factors causing the poor
performance of most irrigation schemes in post-
independence sub-Saharan Africa
Vibeke Bjornlund , Henning Bjornlund & André F. van Rooyen
To cite this article: Vibeke Bjornlund , Henning Bjornlund & André F. van Rooyen (2020) Exploring
the factors causing the poor performance of most irrigation schemes in post-independence sub-
Saharan Africa, International Journal of Water Resources Development, 36:sup1, S54-S101, DOI:
10.1080/07900627.2020.1808448
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2020.1808448
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group.
Published online: 17 Sep 2020.
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Exploring the factors causing the poor performance of most
irrigation schemes in post-independence sub-Saharan Africa
Vibeke Bjornlund
a
, Henning Bjornlund
a
and André F. van Rooyen
b
a
UniSA Business School, University of South Australia, Adelaide;
b
International Crops Research Institute for
the Semi-arid Tropics, Matopos Research Station, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
ABSTRACT
This article explores the factors causing the current poor perfor-
mance of most government irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan
Africa. The literature review nds that the poor performance is not
primarily caused by socioeconomic and biophysical conditions
inherent to sub-Saharan Africa. African farmers have adapted to
diverse biophysical conditions and expanded or contracted their
area under agricultural water management in response to market
signals. Rather, this poor performance is predominantly linked to
the production systems introduced during colonialism and devel-
opments since independence, such as agricultural policies restrain-
ing rural economic development, unsuitable irrigation technologies
and agricultural practices, and international lending practices and
trade arrangements.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 16 December 2019
Accepted 4 August 2020
KEYWORDS
Agricultural water
management; farmer-led;
sub-Saharan Africa; rural
economic development;
agricultural production
systems
Introduction
Formal irrigation schemes were introduced to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by colonial
governments in disregard of local socio-economic and biophysical contexts, and
primarily to meet interests in export crop production. After independence, govern-
ments in SSA continued to develop irrigation schemes with donor backing. These
schemes were not driven by farmers’ economic interests, nor were they used to
enhance production systems for local development (Bjornlund et al., 2020). Rather,
the development and management of irrigation schemes were driven by the political
and social objectives of governments, and often at odds with farmers’ interests. In
contrast, the complex agricultural water management (AWM) practices endogenous to
SSA were adapted in scale and management to their socio-economic and biophysical
environments, as in many places (Bjornlund & Bjornlund, 2019). We use the term
‘government schemes’ to describe irrigation schemes where the government has a
substantial control over their management. The degree and form of government
control varies across schemes and countries. In general, government schemes have
performed poorly and failed to deliver the promised outcomes (Mutiro & Lautze, 2015).
Farmer-led AWM and private irrigation have fared much better; they were often
developed on an entrepreneurial basis in response to economic opportunities and
CONTACT Henning Bjornlund Henning.Bjornlund@unisa.edu.au
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
2020, VOL. 36, NO. S1, S54–S101
https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2020.1808448
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-
ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
managed by farmers as both producers and beneciaries of the system (Bjornlund
et al., 2020).
After independence, governments initially focused on the development of large single-
crop irrigation schemes for national food sovereignty. However, these did not perform
well, and a cycle of decay-refurbishment-decay commenced (Jones, 1995; Racked et al.,
1996). This resulted in abandoned or underutilized irrigation infrastructure. For example,
there is only 54% utilization of irrigated areas in the Sudano-Sahelian region (Food and
Agriculture Organization [FAO], 2016). The focus of development then changed to small
schemes driven by social objectives for household food security, but with similar poor
outcomes (Pittock et al., 2017).
Investment in government schemes declined in the 1990s, but there has recently been
renewed interest by the World Bank (WB) and other lenders. This article argues that
planners and funding agencies, at least until the late 1990s, either did not fully under-
stand or were unable to address the socio-economic and political issues that caused the
previous failures. Consequently, the lessons of history have been ignored, risking the
repetition of past mistakes or limiting the potential benets from irrigation investment.
Thus, it is essential to understand why, despite repeated refurbishments, most govern-
ment schemes have continued to perform poorly.
Many studies argue that the poor performance is because of issues inherent to Africa’s
biophysical environment and its people – for example, poor soils, debilitating droughts and
oods, labour shortages, ignorant farmers, backward farming methods and small-scale
farming systems (Austin, 2008; Tadele, 2017). This article argues that it is critical to under-
stand that this is not the case. Other studies focus on aspects such as high development
costs, poor management, lack of rural nance, expensive fertilizer, lack of infrastructure
(Inocencio et al., 2007; Molle & Renwick, 2005), uncertain land tenure (Abdulai, 2006; Tien,
1985), and lack of farmer organizations (Mercoiret et al., 2007). These aspects do contribute
to poor performance, but addressing them individually has yielded limited positive
outcomes.
We argue that irrigation scheme developers have failed to understand that irrigation
schemes are complex systems. Such systems can only be successful if they operate within
the constraints of the water resource (Lankford, 2010) and are part of a functional rural
economy that is integrated with markets, transportation, and information systems. Unless
schemes are protable, and farmers’ livelihoods are improving – warranting the invest-
ment of labour, land and water – schemes will continue to perform poorly and remain
underutilized.
The hypotheses explored in this article are that the poor performance of most govern-
ment schemes post-independence is rooted in (1) the production and trading systems
introduced during colonialism and (2) post-independence developments of (a) political
systems and policies, (b) technologies and agricultural practices, and (c) global lending
and trading systems. We explore these hypotheses by reviewing a broad range of
literature. As SSA is a vast and diverse region with agricultural development spanning
many centuries, we explore general trends and patterns, rather than reecting the
nuances of development across the region.
The article is structured as follows. The rst section provides evidence to support our
argument that the poor performance of most government irrigation schemes is not
primarily related to issues inherent to Africa’s biophysical environment and its people.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S55
This argument is supported by a description of the main AWM systems endogenous to
SSA (Appendix 1) and their adaptation and expansion in response to European demand.
The second and third sections describe the colonial production systems and post-inde-
pendence agricultural policies and irrigation developments. Hypotheses 2a, 2b and 2c are
explored in a fourth section drawing on the second and third sections and the companion
article by Bjornlund et al. (2020).
African AWM as adaptive and productive systems
AWM systems are understood as planned human interventions to control and distribute
surface and subterranean water for agricultural purposes to meet community objectives
(International Commision on Irrigation and Drainage, 2002). AWM may comprise land
equipped for irrigation, including canals, dykes and weirs (FAO, 2016). Complex AWM
systems existed across Africa when the rst European maritime traders arrived on the west
coast of Africa (Figure 1). This ability to manage and manipulate water was critical for
SSA’s communities, as the increased productivity of AWM could support denser popula-
tions and more complex societies. Appendices 1 and 2 provide an overview of the
diversity and sophistication of these systems.
Adaptation of endogenous AWM systems to external opportunities and market
changes
This section illustrates how AWM systems in SSA were expanded during the 1700s and
1800s to produce crops for export to Europe and to respond to changing market condi-
tions, such as terms of trade, taris and competition.
Export demand was initially driven by European traders on the west coast of Africa. Trading
posts supplied rice and maize to the sugar plantations on Sao Tomé and Principe Islands, and
later to the North Atlantic slave trade (Havik et al., 2018; Knight, 2010). Demand increased in
the late 1700s to supply agricultural raw materials (e.g. gum, rubber, cocoa, palm oil and
peanuts) to Europe’s emerging industries, which stimulated local African economies and the
expansion of SSA’s endogenous AWM systems (Law, 2002; United Kingdom Parliament, Accts.
& Papers, 1879). Inter-regional trade in local produce also increased as the export economy
grew, including goods such as red peppers, kola nuts, livestock, and manufactured products
such as textiles, leather goods and iron hoes (Lovejoy, 1980a). As few urban centres existed,
most daily staples remained locally produced (Inikori, 2013).
High export commodity prices and favourable terms of trade during the 1800s
improved economic conditions in the second half of the nineteenth century (Figure 2).
This meant that local economies were receiving more for exports relative to imports,
creating surplus revenue to invest in agricultural production. On the Gold Coast, for
example, African merchants generated substantial revenue from palm oil, with exports
rising from 350 tons in 1829 to 1,050 tons by 1848 (Reynolds, 1974). Following the
European nancial crisis of the 1880s and the transition to the colonial single-nation
buying regimes, the terms of trade and the commodity prices received by African farmers
declined. To oset the lower prices, the volume of goods exported was increased (Table 1;
Figure 2), and African farmers became increasingly specialized (Bjornlund et al., 2020).
S56 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
Three processes facilitated the increased export production in West Africa: increases in
cropping (both AWM and rainfed) and grazing areas by 40% and 30%, respectively;
intensication of water management (Goldewijk et al., 2017); and increased migration
of labour to production areas (Brooks, 1975). As a result, the area equipped for irrigation in
tropical Africa increased by 720% during the 1800s (Goldewijk et al., 2017). Production
systems were intensied; for example, maize that had been grown for centuries as a
vegetable was adapted to a eld-grown cereal crop in the 1800s. This extended the
cropping season by several weeks in the humid forest zone, encouraging forest clearance
and the expansion of cocoa production in Ghana (McCann, 2007).
Creating large AWM systems required inter-community coordination for substantial
manipulation of the biophysical environment. Examples include the development of tidal
rice production on the west coast of Africa and inland rivers. Importantly, these were local
initiatives, with the benets staying locally and African traders facilitating the transactions
Figure 2. Sub-Saharan Africa terms of trade and British African and French African exports between
1850 and 1939. Source: Frankema et al. (2018). Notes. Smoothed trend excludes South Africa,
Mauritius, Madagascar and Reunion, based on 1900 = 100. Terms of trade is the price received for
exported goods compared to prices paid for imported goods.
Table 1. Decomposition of export growth in British and French West Africa, 1850–1929. Source:
Frankema et al. (2015).
Annual growth of purchasing
power of exports
Price contribution to
annual growth
Volume contribution to
annual growth
British West Africa
1850–1885 3.8 46% 54%
1885–1929 5.5 −24% 124%
French West Africa
1850–1885 5.0 72% 28%
1885–1929 2.0 −123% 223%
S58 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
between producers and shipping companies. These systems were established, managed
and regulated by the communities, using customary laws of obligations, rights and benets.
As external conditions changed, farmers adapted their production. In the 1830s, pea-
nut production in West Africa expanded rapidly to meet demand from Britain and the
Americas. When the US imposed taris to protect local growers in 1841, West African
traders lobbied for the removal of French import restrictions. Consequently, the taris on
whole peanuts were reduced, but taris on peanut oil remained to protect French
processing interests (Brooks, 1975). West Africa also became a major supplier of palm
oil to Europe. When the Suez Canal opened in 1863, palm oil prices fell as the supply from
South-East Asia increased. West African farmers responded by diversifying their produc-
tion: for example, Gold Coast farmers aggressively adopted rubber production, which
increased 2,500% between 1884 and 1898 (Dumett, 1971). However, prices declined after
1910, when inexpensive, high-quality rubber was produced in South-East Asia. The Gold
Coast farmers again demonstrated their exibility and changed to cocoa production, with
Ghana becoming the largest producer in the world (Vos, 2008).
In some places, changes in the control of trade meant that the demand for certain
products ceased, and the economic base and the society disintegrated. For example, in
response to demand for rice and spices, Swahili merchants invested in several large
precolonial irrigation schemes in the coastal valleys around Malindi in Kenya and on the
islands of Pemba and Zanzibar (Nicholls, 1971; Ngigi, 2004) (Figure 1; Appendix 3). These
schemes supplied coastal city-states, with spices also being exported (Vernet, 2009). But
this trade had ceased by the late nineteenth century, after the establishment of the East
Africa Protectorate, as European merchants increasingly relied on supply from the Indian
Ocean islands to avoid the Swahili merchants (Prakash, 1996). Cotton grown under the
Sokoto Caliphate (now part of Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger and Cameroon) supplied a
signicant textile industry in Kano, which supported Arab trade across the Sahara
(Lovejoy, 1978, 1980b). Products such as Benin cloth were traded by Europeans between
coastal ports along the West African coast (Johnson, 1978), which illustrates the value of
the commercial market for African products. When Britain colonized the area in 1903, they
removed the Arab merchants and textile producers, and thereby the economic founda-
tion of the rich Sokoto Caliphate. The caliphate disintegrated, and the population dis-
persed (Lovejoy, 1978).
Substantiating the argument
Dierent and often sophisticated AWM systems evolved across SSA to meet local
demands for food, manufacturing and trade as part of diverse livelihood strategies.
These systems were suciently productive to support large populations, with diverse
occupations and hierarchical social structures. These complex societies could undertake
long-term planning, investment and regional organization of labour. Production systems
had internal feedback mechanisms that drove decision-making, management, and ulti-
mately eciency. Farmers processed this information as a community and decided how
to manage the season, with individual households acting accordingly.
Communities were actively involved in the development and management of produc-
tion, consumption and trade. They experimented and rened their practices over time,
enabling them to expand and intensify crop production under AWM in response to
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S59
European demand. This adaptation continued despite uctuating market conditions and
competition, with farmers and African traders initially benetting from external trade. On
the strength of this evidence we argue that the biophysical environment and the people
of Africa are not the primary cause of the poor performance of most government schemes
in SSA.
Colonial institutionalization of export production in SSA and its legacy
This section describes the colonial administration’s institutionalization of export produc-
tion, which has impacted the economic performance of government schemes since
independence. This provides the evidence to substantiate Hypothesis 1. The drivers of
irrigation expansion and production changes are rst considered. This is followed by a
summary of two large-scale irrigation schemes, which introduced production systems
that have continued to inuence government schemes since independence. A third
section explains how European agricultural advisors dismissed local AWM practices and
knowledge. This resulted in a focus on irrigation schemes during the period of develop-
mental colonialism, which is explained in the fourth section.
Drivers of irrigation expansion and production changes
During the colonial period, agricultural export production in SSA became institutionalized
and entrenched as part of a dual economic system that separated the export and
domestic economies. This separation was set in motion in 1884, when Africa was parti-
tioned into separate European colonies to protect European economic interests and social
stability and prevent competition between the European powers over resource access.
The US Civil War was pivotal in triggering this process, as it necessitated the shift of cotton
production from the US to Africa, India and Latin America. European powers were keen to
secure the supply of low-cost cotton, and other inputs to expand their industries (Beckert,
2004; Calhoun, 2012; Isaacman & Roberts, 1995). As a result, the African export economy
focused on the production and trade of a few crops in single-buyer markets supplying the
colonial powers. The export economy drove the expansion of irrigation and changes to
production systems during the colonial period (Figure 2). Enforced by colonial adminis-
trations, export production continued to increase despite declining terms of trade (Austin,
2009). The domestic economy and markets declined due to expatriation of the revenue
from the export economy; closure of manufacturing industries; discouragement of inter-
regional trade; disruption of local food production and livelihoods (Worboys, 1988); and
payment in provisions rather than cash for domestic and farm labour on plantations and
settler estates. Hence, farmers could not invest in improving the productivity of food
production for local needs.
In western Africa and the Sahel, production of export crops was already well estab-
lished and managed mainly by African producers using endogenous AWM systems
(Apoare, 1882). Colonial governments used several strategies to secure industrial inputs:
investing in infrastructure to produce and transport export crops, including irrigation
schemes, railroads and ports; granting ‘company concessions’ to European companies
and settler estates; securing the labour supply through taxes and corvée labour obliga-
tions; and enforcing export-crop production on communal land in collaboration with local
S60 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
chiefs (Austin, 1984; Bassett, 1988; Bjornlund et al., 2020; Hinds, 1986). These strategies
signicantly increased the area under export crop production: for example, the acreage
under cocoa in Ghana increased by 800–1,000% between 1919 and 1959 (Harwitz, 1964).
While some expansion was on new land, the reallocation of land and labour resources
from local food to export production also took place.
In eastern and southern Africa, colonization was dominated by the arrival of European
settlers, and Africans were often removed from their land. In many locations, colonial
governments gave preference to settlers to supply the export market (Bjornlund et al.,
2020). But in Uganda and Malawi, settlers were not granted protection, and the economic
outcome for individual farmers, whether settler or African, depended on their ability, the
commodity market and access to resources (Frankema et al., 2014). Public and private
investments in irrigation infrastructure were used to support sugar and cotton production
and increase the agricultural area (Appendix 4). Smaller private settler irrigation schemes
and estates were typical in southern Africa and played a signicant role in crop intensica-
tion and the establishment of higher-density settlements in the remote interior (Visser,
2013).
In general, the focus on export crops denied local industries value-adding opportu-
nities. Jobs and skills acquisition arising from industrial technology and manufacturing
took place in Europe rather than Africa. The colonial administrations were also wary of
local industrial production. This would have made the colonies economically more self-
sucient and created a class of skilled workers, which colonial administrations might not
have been able to subdue (Clarence-Smith, 2004). By-products that could have been used
to improve farm income and develop the rural economy were also exported, for example
oilcakes, which improve livestock fodder and increase the volume and quality of milk and
meat. This lack of integration of the agricultural output into value-adding processes
contributed to stagnated productivity in African farming systems.
Higher European demand for agricultural raw materials resulted in substantial expan-
sion of the area under agricultural production, with estimates of 136% and 74% increase
in cropping land and pasture, respectively, between 1900 and 1960 (Goldewijk et al.,
2017), and an increase of 700% in the area equipped for irrigation in SSA (Appendix 5).
Early colonial expectations of irrigation were high, and irrigation schemes were proposed
in a range of situations, including in Tanganyika near Lake Victoria in 1910 (Haldemann,
1957), and the Scarcies in Sierra Leone in the 1920s (Richards, 1986). However, few dams
for irrigation schemes were developed in non-settler regions, as only cotton and sugar
production justied the expense (Figure 3). In the early colonial period, additional
demand was met through expanding or improving existing AWM systems (Roberts,
1996; Appendix 6). AWM therefore underpinned the colonial production system in
western Africa and was supported by colonial governments through small-scale funding
under native administration acts. This produced some benecial outcomes; for example,
the Mopti region of Mali was assisted to construct traditional submersible dykes, canals
and sluice gates to control the ow of water onto 10,000 ha of rice (Roberts, 1996). Smaller
village systems (40–200 ha) in Sokoto Province in Nigeria were further developed to
expand the area supplied with water or improve drainage to manage waterlogging and
oods. As these were improvements rather than total water control, the villages retained
management. The changes improved health and nutrition for the villages during the dry
season (Nwa, 2003).
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S61
Cotton schemes with European investors and control
Several irrigation schemes were developed to enforce the production of long-staple
cotton for European industrial weaving, rather than the short-staple cotton traditionally
grown on rainfed land for home spinning or local industries (Figure 1; Appendix 3). Two
large, centrally controlled schemes were the most important: the Gezira Scheme in Sudan,
and the Oce du Niger Scheme in Mali. Detailed information about these schemes
follows, as their production model set post-independence government schemes on a
path-dependent course. These case studies illustrate how the objectives of the externally
funded and controlled schemes were at odds with farmers’ livelihood strategies.
The Gezira Scheme
A British cotton syndicate operated the Gezira Scheme from 1898 to 1951 and was backed
by the colonial administration, as it increased export revenue. Traditionally, tenant farm-
ers would have received a share of the production. However, the syndicate introduced
prot sharing, which farmers could not physically verify; it was open to manipulation, and
mistrusted by the farmers (Bernal, 1997). Gaitskell (1959) estimated that traditional crop
sharing would have reduced the syndicate’s prot by 70%.
Gezira’s farmers were subjected to a rigid production system, which dictated crop
rotations, inputs and sales (Ertsen, 2006; Robins, 2013). Before colonization, farmers were
mainly pastoralists (sheep) but also grew a few crops, such as short-staple cotton and
cereal, in a mixed production and labour allocation system. The syndicate introduced a
tenant and cropping system, which forced the traditional pastoralists to become croppers
and to reallocate most of their labour to cotton production. Cotton was labour-intensive,
creating labour shortages for land preparation for subsistence crops (millet and sorghum)
and livestock activities. These changes reduced farmers’ livelihood options, farm viability
and food security (Bernal, 1990; Shaaeldin, 1986). Further, irrigation in the dry climate
caused salinization, and the use of canals as night-storage dams caused waterlogging and
brought malaria and bilharzia (Keiser et al., 2005). When the scheme was expanded to
Figure 3. Trends in large dams and reservoirs for irrigation development in sub-Saharan Africa (adapted
from FAO, 2016) and estimate of area equipped for irrigation (source: Freydank & Siebert, 2008).
S62 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
460,000 ha in the 1920s, it became necessary to recruit tenants and slaves from other
regions, creating resource conicts and disrupting social cohesion.
The depression of the 1930s revealed the risk of relying on one cash crop in a single-
buyer system. Global cotton prices plummeted, and production was simultaneously
reduced by a locust plague and bacterial blight. The syndicate ensured that farmers
received little of the diminishing prot and refused to change the xed crop rotation.
Hence, farmers’ debt increased, and many starved. While farmers with large livestock
herds could focus on more protable activities and pay subcontractors to do their cotton
work, others had no alternative and abandoned their land. The syndicate argued that this
was because the farmers were lazy and incompetent (Daly, 1991; Voll, 1981), rather than
responding rationally to oppressive economic conditions (Gaitskell, 1959). Permanent and
seasonal migrants from western Sudan were either subcontractors or took over the
abandoned land (Wallach, 1988), creating further social problems (Mollan, 2008).
The Office du Niger Scheme
In West Africa, short-staple cotton was widely grown in rainfed upland areas, intercropped
with rice. However, France wanted long-staple cotton. As this cotton variety could not be
intercropped with rice, farmers were advised to establish single-crop, long-staple cotton
production, leaving soil exposed to erosion. When soil erosion occurred, farmers were
instructed to create bunds for soil conservation, requiring labour the communities did not
have. Hence, farmers reverted to the short-staple cotton.
The Oce du Niger scheme was established on the oodplain, with a system of
tenant farmers, so that the production of long-staple cotton could be enforced. A
secondary objective was to supply rice to Senegal so farmers there could focus on
peanut production for the French oilseed industry (Becker, 1994). A pilot project started
in the 1920s, and in 1931 the French government approved funding for the develop-
ment of 960,000 ha to be managed by a semi-autonomous agency. Farmers were
initially voluntarily recruited from villages 10–40 km away. New villages were con-
structed, and farmers received individual land tenancies. Chiefs and other community
leaders directed production, commanded labour, collected taxes and managed social
issues.
The scheme was beset by problems from the early stages. The pilot project and the
potential expansion plan were unrealistic, and the scheme never had more than 60,000 ha
under irrigation. Farmer mortality was high, due to malnutrition caused by changing from
a diverse diet (sorghum, millet, cowpeas, peanuts, livestock and sh) to a high-starch, low-
protein diet (maize). An oppressive system was enforced: farmers had to be in their elds
during certain hours, could not engage in other livelihood activities (e.g. shing and
weaving) and could not sell their harvest to outsiders, even when the prices oered were
much higher. Those disobeying might be physically punished or have their rations cut,
shing nets conscated or woven cloth destroyed (Couture et al., 2002; Van Beusekom,
1989).
Even before the French approved the funding, 30% of the farmers had ed the pilot
project. Voluntary settlements ended in 1934, and ve villages 150 km away were
forcefully resettled at the scheme. Another 15% left when forced labour was abolished
in 1946 (Van Beusekom, 1989). While some concessions were made, including raising the
price of cotton and distributing free rice and millet (Van Beusekom, 2000), the scheme
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S63
never delivered the promised exports. As with Gezira, there was a fundamental conict
between the scheme’s objectives of securing the supply of long-staple cotton and farm-
ers’ livelihood strategies. Hence, the farmers did not collaborate, and the system failed.
This highlights the importance of the motives behind externally controlled irrigation
schemes and their inuence on livelihoods.
Colonial agricultural advisors’ dismissal of endogenous AWM and agricultural
practices
The agricultural ocers who advised the colonial oces in Britain and France were based
in Europe. Generally, they had a poor understanding of agricultural production and water
management in SSA and failed to realize how well local farmers understood their
environment. They viewed farmers as backward, ignorant, irrational and conservative,
as they did not understand the sound and logical reasons for local practices, such as the
use of manual labour in humid forest zones where tsetse ies ruled out the use of draught
power (Filipovich, 2001; Willis, 1909). When an inuenza epidemic in Sierra Leone in 1918
caused a shortage of harvesting labour and therefore of food supplies, the British colonial
oce concluded this was due to substandard agricultural practices. However, the Indian
agronomist subsequently invited to teach rice production found that farmers were
innovative and careful seed collectors, and that yields were better than in Madras (Pillai,
1921). A decade later, farmers in southern Sierra Leone again demonstrated their capacity
to adapt and improve as they quadrupled their rice production between 1929 and 1934 to
compensate for lost kola nut exports (Stockdale, 1936).
Many agricultural ocers who had worked on the ground in Africa for many years
realized it was essential to build on local and successful AWM experiences. However, it
was the colonial advisors’ notion of African farmers’ need for advanced technologies that
inuenced decisions (Richards, 1985). This is still reected in the language used in funding
applications.
Acceleration of irrigation planning under developmental colonialism
In eastern Africa, land alienation reduced Africans’ ability to produce food. Similarly, in
western Africa the pressure for increased production of export crops reduced the land
available for food production. Illustrating these pressures, exports to France increased six-
fold between 1871 and 1934, and exports to Britain increased eight-fold between 1887
and 1937 (Figure 2). The focus on export production at the expense of local food security
resulted in endemic malnutrition in both West and East Africa during the 1920s and 1930s
(Robins, 2013; Worboys, 1988). To increase productivity, colonial administrations invested
in research, including rice research in Sierra Leone in 1934 (Richards, 1986) and the British
campaign in the 1920s to introduce maize into eastern Africa (Forshey, 2008).
By 1940, reports of widespread poverty and hunger in the colonies reached Europe,
coinciding with the colonial powers’ struggle to maintain support for their empires. To
give colonialism political legitimacy and a ‘human’ face, Britain and France introduced
‘developmental colonialism’. In both nations’ colonies, investments were made to
increase food production, public expenditures per capita to improve health and welfare
quadrupled between 1940 and 1955, and aid increased (Chafer, 2002; Cogneau et al.,
S64 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
2018). But given the perception of AWM held by the agricultural advisors in Europe,
investments were made in irrigation schemes rather than improving and expand-
ing AWM.
Investment proposals were evaluated by governmental panels of academic experts in
areas such as agriculture, economics and administration. However, they had neither
experience in Africa (Hodge, 2007) nor understanding of the biophysical environment
and the problems faced by the farmers. This resulted in poor planning and engineering,
wasted expenditure, and irrigation projects not achieving the envisaged outcome
(Carstairs, 1945). These processes institutionalized the importing of the developed world’s
expertise and solutions that were unsuitable for the problems of African farmers (Sally &
Abernethy, 2002). Developmental colonialism marks the start of public project spending,
and substantial increases in investment in dams and new irrigation schemes (Figure 3;
Appendix 6). This further consolidated the path-dependent process of irrigation develop-
ment, which continued after independence. However, no investments were made in
supporting farmers by investing in research, demonstration plots, processing facilities
and market connections.
The development of three resettlement schemes in Kenya in the 1950s illustrates how
poor performance was perpetuated by modelling management on the Gezira scheme.
The three schemes (Mwea, Hola and Perkerra) totalling 18,200 ha (Ngigi, 2004; Obara,
1984) were distant from markets and incorporated top-down enforcement of rice mono-
cropping, water control and marketing; small land allocations; disciplinary actions; and
the removal of customary owners without compensation (De Wilde, 1967; Veen, 1973).
The result was unviable farms, poor performance and absenteeism.
The Scarcies polder rice irrigation scheme in Sierra Leone is a 1940s example of
engineering that was unsuited to the local context. The local AWM system in the estuaries
relied on tidal surges to push brackish water into the elds during the growing season to
limit weed growth. The polders prevented this. As farmers did not have spare labour for
weeding, rice growing became unviable, and the scheme failed. Had the engineers
sought local knowledge, this could have been avoided (Richards, 1986). In other circum-
stances, poor planning resulted in signicant wasted expense and nancial losses. For
example, the rst refurbishment of the Oce du Niger scheme received CFA700 million in
1953, but the redesign failed to address the unviable economic structures, and the
scheme lost CFA139 million between 1953 and 1955 (Toussaint et al., 2008).
Post-independence agricultural policies and irrigation developments
This section describes the post-independence policies and unprofessional lending prac-
tices which contributed to the poor performance of most government schemes. The rst
section focuses on the early stages of independence, and the second on post-2000
developments. The discussion provides evidence to support Hypotheses 2a and 2b.
Early stages of independence
Independence for most African colonies came in the 1960s. Many aspects of the colonial
legacy continued to inuence the performance of agriculture and irrigation developments.
Colonial state boundaries were maintained, creating ‘articial’ nations where the population
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S65
had neither a collective identity nor the aspiration of shared nationhood. The new nations
were left to deal with the nancial burden of overcoming 80 years of colonialism and a lack
of investment. Land, forest and water resources were vested in the state, and land titles only
existed in the export sector for settler properties and foreign plantations (Toulmin & Guèye,
2003). For the remaining farmers, there were no formal mechanisms that allowed them to
gain ownership of their share of communal land, and therefore no way to transfer their
share to another farmer. Without legal title, security for lending for long-term investment to
improve agricultural production was not available. The colonial legacy resulted in greater
competition and conict over land and water resources.
Governments were ill-equipped, under-resourced and unprepared to handle the dicult
processes of restructuring the dualistic agricultural economy and developing a domestic
food production sector with publicly accountable organizations and institutions. Funding
was required to establish government services in rural areas, processing and storage, and a
transport and distribution system with access to regional African markets (Cox & Niegi,
2010). There was also little food production and demographic data to inform policies
(Gardner, 2012). In particular, the legacy of African farmers’ ingenuity and ability to adapt
AWM practices was dismissed in favour of the Western technologies espoused through
European education systems, and hence not factored into agricultural policies. As national
budgets remained dependent on a few export crops, revenue was subject to international
market uctuations, making long-term planning dicult.
There were no political leaders or civil servants capable of establishing viable national
economies or managing the development of self-reliant, functional and autonomous
societies (Bloom et al., 2006). The well-educated elite claimed political control after
independence. They had a vested economic interest in the export sector and little
incentive to change the dual economy (Bjornlund et al., 2020). They used their position
to gain control over large farms and directed government-subsidized inputs to these
farms (McCann, 2007). This alienated rural communities, as these farms were created by
acquiring and amalgamating land, without compensation, from functional farming com-
munities (Bates, 1981). The elite also had interests in capital-intensive and large-scale
infrastructure projects, such as irrigation (Tien, 1985). Their businesses benetted from
the supply contracts, such as for cars and accommodation and payments to facilitate
contracts, and they used their inuence to recommend suppliers. As land and other
resources were vested in governments and their allocation controlled by the political
elite and chiefs, mining companies and infrastructure developers had a keen interest in
pleasing local politicians so that their proposals were accepted. The WB and other lenders,
therefore, inadvertently supported nepotism and corruption as part of doing business
(Heilbrunn, 2004; Warf, 2017). This further entrenched corruption and increased transac-
tion costs, and still hampers development today.
Despite the ocial transition to a Western-style democracy, old kinship loyalties
remained, and nepotism inuenced many African nations more broadly. In rural areas,
people voted as instructed by the chief, which helped maintain an elite focused on urban
political and economic interests. The consequence was conicts of interest between the
political elite and farmers, dependency on loans, aid and subsidies, and resource conict
and violence between user groups (Boussard et al., 2006).
S66 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
A political focus on urban rather than rural development
The newly independent countries were mainly focused on urban politics, despite having
agrarian economies (Berry, 1984). Urban residents had more political inuence because they
were more concentrated, more visible and better able to articulate their opinions and
dissatisfaction (Sandbrook, 1982). While the political elite benetted from exporting com-
modities, they also focused on economic policies that would gain urban political support,
reduce the dependence on food imports and save foreign currency. Policies were designed
to ensure urban food security and low food prices to reduce the wage pressure on urban
businesses and improve living standards for urban consumers (Adam, 1977). This was
achieved in two ways. First, securing lower prices by: maintaining an overvalued exchange
rate (making imported food cheaper); not protecting local production with taris (making
local food more expensive); operating government-controlled marketing organizations to
mandate the price of staples, often at or below production cost (Bates, 1981); and subsidiz-
ing farm inputs for large farms (reducing the cost of production). Second, securing supply by
intensifying the production of staple food through consolidating land into large farms, and
building large government irrigation schemes to produce staple crops.
These policies were detrimental to farmers and overlooked the economic links and
investment opportunities between agriculture and other sectors of the economy. They
also undermined the incentive for the private sector to invest in marketing, food proces-
sing, storage, agricultural supply chains, transport infrastructure, mechanization, and
nancial and legal services (Paugam, 2015; Smit, 2016). Such investments could have
created non-farm jobs and increased agricultural production, farm income and rural
economic development (Eicher & Staatz, 1985), supporting the viability of irrigation
schemes. Because of this lack of investment, crops often spoilt in the elds or during
post-harvest storage and transport, as they could not reach markets. The shortfall in
meeting urban demand was met by imports. Higher urban incomes increased the
demand for high-value products such as processed food, meat, vegetables and fruit
(Paugam, 2015). With the right policies, economic incentives, infrastructure and market
information, this demand could have created opportunities for local farmers and national
economies; instead it was met by food imports, putting pressure on the balance of
payment (World Bank, 1981).
Lack of investment in rural economic development limited the economic viability of
rural communities, causing high rural outmigration and greater population pressure in
urban centres. As urban centres grew, demand for cereals (rice, maize and wheat)
increased, which sparked local and international interest in investment in large-scale
irrigation for cereal production for food sovereignty in the 1960s and 1970s (Figures 3
and 4; Appendices 5 and 6).
Irrigation and the development path for SSA
There have been two broad and simultaneous attempts to increase SSA’s food production
and agricultural productivity: capital-intensive agronomic practices and irrigation
schemes. Neither of these interfered with the land allocated to the commodity export
sector, and both favoured Western-inuenced modern technology and practices.
Productivity increases were sought by establishing large commercial farms rather than
investing in traditional AWM systems. This reects the view that the technologies and
farming practices used by small-scale farmers were the core of the problem (Borlaug,
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S67
1970). The US funded research on rice, wheat and maize to increase yield and food
production and win the minds and stomachs of the newly independent countries. The
research focused on attaining higher yields on large-scale mechanized farms using large
amounts of expensive inputs (fertilizer, pesticides and hybrid seeds) and double cropping
under perennial irrigation. This capital-intensive package of Western science became
synonymous with modern farming and was rst introduced in Asia and subsequently
into SSA. This approach was not appropriate for SSA’s small-scale farmers due to inade-
quate infrastructure and a lack of market access, supply chains, aordable fertilizer and
capital.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the WB’s position was that the public and private sectors
should play dierent roles in economic development – see Hodd (1987) for details about
the WB Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). To enable the public sector to
play its role, the WB provided governments with loans to build public infrastructure to
attract the private sector to invest in production, marketing and distribution of agricul-
tural and industrial products. In the 1960s, the WB’s investment strategies for creating
economic development and supporting national economies were based on a simple
model (Zoellick, 2010) with four inter-related steps: Step 1, increasing agricultural pro-
ductivity and production; Step 2, generating surplus for sale, thereby increasing economic
activity in rural areas, and creating jobs, tax revenue, export earnings and an improved
trade balance; Step 3, integrating the agricultural sector into the national economy to
generate demand for non-agricultural products and support local manufacturing, the
service sector and job creation; and Step 4, providing raw materials for industrial produc-
tion, local consumption and export (Timmer, 1988).
Irrigation was the primary component for increasing productivity in the WB model, and
capital was essential for irrigation development (Inocencio et al., 2007). Hence, most WB
lending for agricultural projects funded the construction of dams for large-scale irrigation
(Jones, 1995; Figures 3 and 4). It soon became apparent that this strategy was unsuccess-
ful in generating the productivity increases necessary for the WB model to work. This
might reect an Indian study from the 1950s, which found that 41% of yield increase was
attributed to fertilizer and only 27% to irrigation (FAO, 1981). Despite the WB auditing
oce’s reporting in the mid-1960s that these developments would not be viable, the
lending continued. The economic policies of African governments undermined the suc-
cess of the WB model, as they made farming unprotable (Kpundeh & Riley, 1992). The
WB’s willingness to keep funding could be questioned on economic grounds; however, it
must be seen in the context of US economic interests in African resources and the Cold
War, which created a desire to link developing countries to the Western world. This led to
unprofessional lending practices without accountability (Stiglitz, 2004), including rent
seeking, corruption, and the funding of projects that Horowitz and Salem-Murdock
(1993) described as Cadillac projects with a 2CV engine. From 1950 to 1993 the WB
nanced close to 400 dams and irrigation schemes in Africa totalling 3.7 billion constant
US dollars (Jones, 1995; Figure 3). These developments consolidated the path-dependent
course from colonial times and perpetuated Africa’s problems.
Development costs were a contributing factor to the debt burden created by irrigation
schemes in SSA (Inocencio et al., 2007). The average cost of new irrigation projects in SSA
in the 1980s was US$14,500/ha versus US$6,600/ha in South-East Asia. In the remote
Turkana region in Kenya, costs were as high as US$63,000/ha (Rosegrant & Perez, 1997),
S68 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
providing an extreme example of the cost of politically motivated developments. For
rehabilitation, the average cost was US$8,200/ha in SSA compared to US$2,300/ha in
South-East Asia. The higher costs were due to lower economies of scale, with large SSA
schemes smaller by a factor of three; greater distance to ports; few navigable rivers; and
lack of transport infrastructure and services. Hence, irrigation budgets included the
construction of access roads, housing for sta, electric grids and public services. While
Inocencio et al. (2007) argue that the cost in SSA was not statistically higher than in South-
East Asia – after adjusting for these factors and excluding the schemes with the most
corruption – the high cost has inuenced the economic future of SSA countries.
Importantly, the need for many of these investments can be directly linked to the colonial
legacy of providing infrastructure for export crops rather than local distribution. As most
materials and services for establishing irrigation schemes were imported, rent seeking and
corruption have further increased the development cost.
Not until the 1980s, after many SSA countries defaulted on payments, did funding
start to dry up. A consensus emerged among irrigation professionals that irrigation
schemes were not simply a matter of concrete and water, and most solutions were
associated with governance (Kpundeh & Riley, 1992). The WB therefore started to
focus on small-scale irrigation schemes and implementing water user associations in
existing schemes (World Bank, 1988). This might have improved conditions in some
schemes but did not address the lack of market integration. Jones (1995) argues that
the rationale was that small could not go as wrong as large. Further, some argued
that the participatory element was mainly to transfer the cost of maintenance to
farmers (You et al., 2011). Consequently, neither large nor small government schemes
kick-started Step 1 of the WB model. In combination with the lack of rural economic
development, Steps 2 through 4 did not eventuate (Dorward et al., 2004). Large debts
are an additional legacy, which were partly caused by US lending and monetary
policies (Bjornlund et al., 2020) but also partly by domestic policies (Greene & Khan,
1990). These debts eventually sent the young nations into bankruptcy and have
burdened future generations of Africans with the repayment of unproductive loans.
Farmers’ livelihood strategies at odds with the objectives and characteristics of large
government schemes
Large government schemes were developed, particularly in the semi-dry Sahelian zone in
Sudan, where dry conditions and access to the Nile favoured cotton production, but also
in Mali and northern Nigeria (Adams, 1985; Adams & Carter, 1987) (Appendix 6). The
objective of most schemes established after independence was to address social and
political issues caused by the earlier focus on the export economy and the neglect of the
domestic economy.
These schemes were capital-intensive. They were typically larger than 3000 ha and
comprised storage, diversion, conveyance and distribution works, plus embankments for
ood protection where required (Underhill, 1990). Their governance and production
arrangements usually followed the Gezira model, with xed irrigation schedules and infra-
structure; external management by government ocers without local knowledge or trusted
credentials and accountable to a government agency rather than to the farmers
(Zwarteveen, 2008); prescribed production of staple crops that were subject to price control;
and land and labour allocated to a single crop. These characteristics made it dicult for
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S69
farmers to make a prot, and inter-scheme conicts arose as trust was not established. As a
result, farmers’ traditional diverse livelihood strategies were at odds with these character-
istics, and they were reluctant to pay fees and participate in scheme maintenance.
Drijver and Marchand (1986) considered the economic scenario for farmers under
AWM compared to allocating all their labour to rice production on the Oce du Niger
scheme (Table 2). They found that farmers were better o with the traditional diversity of
income and food sources. While rice-only farming produced eight times as many calories
and 50% more protein than AWM, the produce from AWM was more varied in nutritional
and economic value. The potentially higher prot margin (4%) from growing rice alone
was insucient to buy the forgone nutrition and other non-farm benets. The associated
risk was high and borne by the farmers. When the canals on the Oce du Niger were
functional, farmers could be coerced to focus on rice production, but they would not
maintain the canals; the scheme became underutilized, and a cycle of rehabilitation-
decay-rehabilitation commenced (FAO, 2016).
A scheme’s location often inuenced the viability for farmers, and many were on
oodplains and distant from urban markets. This, combined with poorly developed
infrastructure, made market access dicult and costly. Lack of milling and storage facil-
ities prevented farmers from receiving optimal prices for rice, and cheap food imports into
urban markets depressed prices (Adams & Grove, 1984).
Irrigation supplied from a dam oers the opportunity for two cereal crops, but farmers
would only utilize this option if it provided the best economic outcome. Most farmers in
the Sahel had mixed livelihood activities, including livestock, and transplanting dry-
season rice conicted with taking livestock to distant pastures. As the potential income
from livestock was greater than a second rice crop, very little double cropping happened.
Hence, the feature of irrigation that made it superior to AWM was not viable for farmers
without simultaneous investment in processing and intensication of livestock produc-
tion (H. Bjornlund et al., 2017).
Resettlement schemes were implemented in the 1960s, for example Mbarali, Madibira
and Dakawa in Tanzania. These schemes had large diversion infrastructure and lined main
canals, with the objective of providing rice for the urban market. They were managed by
state agencies, with farmers as paid labourers, and depended on government support.
Table 2. Comparison of traditional agricultural water management in the Niger Inner Delta and the
Office de Niger Scheme, 1978 (adapted from Drijver & Marchand, 1986).
Inner Niger Delta Office de Niger
Meat Milk Fish Rice
a
Total Rice
a
Total
Total weigh (t)
a
10,372 118,454 100,000 78,400 – 100,000 –
Weight (g/100 m
3
water) 44 506 427 235 – 5003 –
Value (Malian francs per 100 m
3
) 18 202 171 23 414 550 550
Protein yield (g) 8 17 77 18 119 190 190
Energy yield (Kcal) 83 318 401 853 1656 13,749 13,749
Cost of Input for 100 m
3
(Malian francs):
Fertilizer (50 kg/ha) 0 0 Very little 0 – 11 Risk for farmers
120Management 0 Very little – –
Services 0 0 Very little Very little – 84
Oxen, ploughs – 0 – Very little – 25
Profit margin per 100 m
3
(Malian francs) = value – input: 414 430
a
The total weight of rice is based on 1978 averages of 1.4 and 2 t/ha for the Inner Niger Delta and Office de Niger
schemes, respectively.
S70 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
This support ceased in the 1990s, and the schemes collapsed (Kadigi et al., 2012). Some
schemes were privatized, while others were given to the farmers, assigning them manage-
ment and economic responsibility (Stirzaker & Pittock, 2014). As the farmers had often
been resettled from very dierent areas, several issues arose; they either lacked irrigation
experience and knowledge of local soils or failed to develop the trust and cooperation
required for collaboration.
Economic issues for farmers in small schemes
Two types of small government schemes were developed: expanded and upgraded
existing AWM systems; and new schemes with social objectives such as resettlement
and subsistence food production. The latter were on newly cleared land, often with
poor soils and in remote locations (Harrison, 2018). Most of these schemes struggled,
as viability in irrigation schemes with a subsistence orientation but no subsidies is an
oxymoron; farmers could not pay irrigation fees or buy inputs if they ate what they
produced. These costs and household expenses – school fees, transport and other
essentials – required cash.
A range of factors in small schemes inuenced farmers’ economic outcomes. While
small government schemes had dierent governance structures, water schedules were
often determined by a government agency and inexible. In some countries, including
Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the production of staples (mainly maize) for food security
was mandatory. However, the low market value of these staples made irrigation unviable
(H. Bjornlund et al., 2017). Where farmers had more cropping choices, they could produce
a mix of vegetables. But they then needed to navigate demand and transport their
produce to market to realize an economic return. In many cases, farmers produced the
crops they were most familiar with, leading either to low prices for crops that stored well
(e.g. cabbages) or oversupply and spoilage of more perishable crops (e.g. tomatoes).
While Dtmzthe (1997) nds that small schemes less than 5 km from a market have better
sales opportunities, local markets can only absorb limited volumes of a commodity before
prices fall and production becomes unviable. Commercial production and participation in
domestic and regional markets were not part of governments’ vision, and extension
ocers were not trained in economic and market analysis, so they could not help farmers
identify viable enterprises based on urban demand for high-value crops or value-added
products (Vorley, 2013).
The policy-driven objectives of the schemes meant the focus was on irrigated
crops as the nal product, rather than a more holistic approach to support farmers’
economic opportunities, for example, growing fodder to improve livestock produc-
tion and quality. Small plots and the lack of market and processing opportunities
made it impossible for farmers to make a living from irrigated crops. Hence, they
supplemented irrigated farming with other activities, including rainfed cropping,
livestock and o-farm work. This often resulted in sub-optimal resource allocations
from an irrigation productivity perspective (H. Bjornlund et al., 2019). As o-farm
work opportunities were limited due to lack of rural economic development, men
often worked far from the farm, leaving women and children to manage production.
As small-scale irrigation schemes did not meet farmers’ economic needs, the schemes
deteriorated and became underutilized.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S71
Detrimental impacts of resource allocation and irrigation schemes
As a result of poor hydrological understanding, the construction and management of
large dams have had adverse economic impacts on downstream farmers. For example,
the Manantali Dam (Mali), was constructed in the 1980s for hydropower and to irrigate
50,000 ha. However, it dried up 320,000 ha of ood-recession farming, depriving 100,000
farmers of their land and livelihoods. Environmental impacts were also created down-
stream; groundwater resources and riverine forests were damaged, and an area with a low
incidence of water-borne disease became one of the worst-infected in Africa (Horowitz &
Salem-Murdock, 1993). This project, like many others, not only failed to provide the
promised benets but also contributed to persistent rural poverty.
In Tanzania, the Great Ruaha River was over-allocated. Since the lling of the Mtera
Dam in 1994 and the opening of the Kapunga scheme, the river has dried out seasonally
(Mdemu & Francis, 2013; Walsh, 2012). Over-allocation is a politically expedient way to
reduce tension, as it avoids having to limit access to resources, and project proposals
attract funding and political support (Allan, 2006). Over-allocation creates supply insecur-
ity for downstream users, who have no ability to challenge the decision (Molle & Wester,
2009); for example, over-allocation in the Chad Basin resulted in lake recession and the
out-migration of millions of people (Oce of the Auditor-General for the Federation,
Nigeria, 2015; Okpara et al., 2015).
Irrigation development since 2000: is a new paradigm emerging?
Since 2000, WB reports have started to show support for good governance, market
integration and improved nancial return as essential elements of irrigation projects
(Waalewijn et al., 2020). This section discusses the successful Fadama project, which has
embraced a systems view and illustrates a paradigm transition in irrigation development;
this is a paradigm that requires wider universal acceptance.
The Fadama project, funded by the Nigerian government and the WB, was implemen-
ted on fadama land with traditional ood recession AWM and diverse livelihood strategies
such as cropping, herding, shing and harvesting of materials (see Appendix 1 for
denition of fadama land). From Fadama I to III the project transitioned from the old to
a new paradigm to better meet community needs. Fadama I (1993–99) used the tradi-
tional top-down approach, focusing on increasing rice productivity and investing in
irrigation infrastructure, tube wells and pumps (Nkonya et al., 2012; Takeshima &
Yamauchi, 2012). Crop production increased, but the neglect of post-harvest issues
reduced crop prices and increased storage losses, and the exclusion of other resource
users created conicts between croppers, herders and shers (Babatunde et al., 2008).
These lessons were incorporated into Fadama II (2004–2010), which shifted to a
community-driven development approach supporting activities other than agriculture.
Following signicant progress in the rst three years, Fadama III was expanded to all 37
states in Nigeria with fadama land (World Bank, 2007). The project supported user groups,
whose members had a common economic interest. The target was to increase real
income by 20%. Fadama III utilized a private–public funding model, where the farmers
and the project contributed 30% and 70%, respectively, to cover the cost of productive
assets such as processing, shing and irrigation equipment, and buildings (World Bank,
2003). These assets were managed by the user groups to facilitate sharing and revenue
S72 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
raising; for example, boreholes for watering cattle were shared according to herd size, and
processing equipment was hired out in addition to serving user group members’ needs.
The project adopted a targeted approach to select participants based on gender,
disability, age and specic economic interest groups with dierent livelihood activities.
The average income for participating families increased by 59%. Even for non-participants
within the community the increase was 41%, as they also benetted from improved road
and irrigation infrastructure, o-farm work opportunities, access to services, and other
public facilities. Non-farm activities contributed the second-largest share of household
income for all participants, and farm incomes in neighbouring areas increased by 15%
(Nkonya et al., 2012). Therefore, the Fadama III approach supported local economic
development through ow-on eects and showed that signicant outcomes can be
achieved by incorporating all aected resource users and encouraging collaboration
between groups with common interests.
The approach of the Fadama project might indicate that a paradigm shift is taking
place to integrate irrigation into rural economic development, and that the livelihood
strategies of farmers and communities are being considered when designing and imple-
menting new developments. However, while there is evidence of this new paradigm in
the Fadama project and in new WB project design (see Ministry of Agriculture, 2010, and
African Development Bank, 2018, for projects in Mozambique and Mali), there is limited
evidence of similar changes on the ground in projects other than Fadama. The reality is
that many governments still focus on large irrigation schemes, and many donors are still
willing to fund them. It might still take a long time to learn the lessons of the past.
Non-government development of irrigation
Farmers using AWM methods outside government schemes is one form of non-govern-
ment development. Whether AWM uses traditional technology or small pumps, it has
more recently been described as farmer-led AWM (Beekman et al., 2014). Figures on the
extent of this vary widely. For example, FAO (2016) reports 625,000 ha of ood-recession
farming in Nigeria, but the size of the commercial rice harvest from the same period
suggests that the gure should be 1.5 million ha (Ugalahi et al., 2016). While the FAO
(2016) reports that no farmer-led AWM exists in Mozambique, Beekman et al. (2014)
report that at least 118,000 ha exists and add that underreporting is common for SSA.
Reecting this, Wiggins and Lankford (2019) argue that most of FAO’s estimated 2 million
ha (56%) increase in irrigated area in SSA from the 1990s to 2016 was farmer-led AWM.
Farmer-led development reects increased access to cheap technology; small Chinese
pumps can be bought for around US$250 and, combined with exible piping, enable
farmers to use water year-round (Scoones et al., 2019).
Discrepancies in the area under AWM raise concern over the estimated potential for
irrigation development in SSA, as the land included in the estimated potential may
already be cultivated under AWM. Estimates of area vary widely and are dicult to
reconcile. You et al. (2011) estimate the potential at 1.3 million ha for large-scale and
6.6 million ha for small-scale irrigation schemes, making a total of 7.9 million ha. Xie et al.
(2014) estimate the potential as 30 million ha for motor pumps, 24 million ha for treadle
pumps, 22 million ha for small reservoirs and 20 million ha for communal river diversions,
for a total of 96 million ha. Figure 4 shows that post-independence irrigation schemes are
in areas suitable for AWM production, suggesting that new irrigation schemes, unless
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S73
groundwater-fed, might encroach on existing AWM systems. This may not be benecial
for existing AWM farmers as they have uncertain property rights and may be at risk of
being displaced.
There is emerging evidence that farmer-led AWM and individual small-scale irrigation
provide economic opportunities for small-scale farmers. De Bont et al. (2019) document
for Mozambique and Tanzania that farmer-led systems are commercial, with crops grown
for the market using improved seeds, fertilizers and hired labour. Owusu (2016) found that
Figure 4. Post-independence major dams and irrigation schemes and area suitable for agricultural
water management (map compiled by the authors from Appendix 6 and You et al. (2011)).
S74 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
farmers in Ghana using small-scale motor pumps to irrigate can generate two to three
times higher returns on family labour, which could be increased with better access to
inputs. This suggests that exible micro-credit to overcome liquidity constraints asso-
ciated with investments, operation and maintenance of pumps would increase produc-
tivity and economic returns to farmers. It seems reasonable to suggest that farmer-led and
individual small-scale irrigation represent investment and development opportunities in
viable production systems. The outcomes of the Fadama project also suggest that public–
private partnerships to support farmer-led AWM can produce positive economic out-
comes. Hence, farmer-led AWM and private irrigators might provide viable alternatives to
government schemes (World Bank, 2018).
However, African governments have maintained political control over resources with-
out legalized acknowledgement of customary rights (dierent arrangements and issues
exist for land and water, but this is outside the scope of this article). These rights have
been widely respected by governments and within communities; however, where gov-
ernments have an interest in the land, AWM farmers have lost their land and livelihood
without compensation, which does not encourage investment in irrigation (Boussard et
al., 2006). In other cases, those involved with farmer-led AWM have been neglected or
even criminalized, despite AWM being practised prior to colonialism (Ulvila, 1995); for
example, in the Uluguru Mountains in Tanzania, attempts were made to evict the farmers
(Kusiluka et al., 2011; Lopa et al., 2012; Mussa & Mwakaje, 2013).
While there appear to be opportunities to use public–private partnerships to develop
farmer-led AWM, some partnerships could represent risks for local farmers and local
development, particularly where the partnerships are between resource-rich farmers or
companies (often from another country) and national governments, which have also been
referred to as land grabs (Friis & Reenberg, 2010). While these arrangements might
increase production, they might also marginalize local farmers and communities, and
transfer benets out of the community.
Exploring the hypotheses
The following discussion is organized to explore four hypotheses: that the current poor
performance of government schemes is rooted in (1) the production and trading systems
introduced during colonialism and (2) post-independence developments of (a) political
systems and policies, (b) technologies and agricultural practices, and (c) global lending
practices and trading systems.
Hypothesis 1: production and trading systems introduced during colonialism
During the colonial period, changes were progressively made to focus production systems
on export crops at the expense of domestic production, markets and rural economic
development. This undermined Africa’s ability to invest in industries such as food proces-
sing, and technologies to improve rural job availability and intensify production. Aspects
of the production system that still inuence the performance of government schemes
include:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S75
●Prioritization of a small range of export commodities, leaving farmers exposed to
volatile markets;
●Consolidation of trade in export crops into a single-buyer system – this made
farmers price takers, expatriated economic benets, and left little for African
economic development;
●Separation of the lucrative European-controlled import-export market from the less
commercially valuable African-supplied domestic market;
●Focus of investment in agricultural research and transport infrastructure for export
crops, increasing dependence on imports at the expense of infrastructure for domes-
tic and regional trade, improved varieties of local crops, and local production of farm
inputs;
●Discouragement or prohibition of local manufacturing, regional trade and proces-
sing industries, restricting rural development and increasing dependence on
imports;
●Provision of Western-inuenced agricultural technology and extension to support
production, rather than building on local farming practices;
●Development of capital-intensive irrigation schemes with a cost structure unsuitable
for farming conditions in SSA; and
●Introduction of a top-down production system characterized by central manage-
ment; xed and rigid cropping and water supply schedules; settlements of people
from dierent cultures and communities with or without farming experience; and no
mechanisms to resolve conict between users.
The objectives of colonial production were at odds with the livelihood strategies of
African famers and meant that irrigation schemes neither beneted farmers nor sup-
ported the development of strong and diverse local economies. This resulted in impover-
ishment, malnutrition, poor health, and social problems due to forced labour and long-
term migration.
Hypothesis 2a: political systems and policies
At the time of independence, the urban elite took control of the political and adminis-
trative systems. Many had adopted Western values and norms, and their interests were
aligned with colonial administrations. Their Western orientation inuenced the policies
that were implemented after independence and contributed to the poor performance of
government schemes. While policies varied across SSA, the objectives were much the
same:
●Fostering food sovereignty to limit imports and save foreign currency by consolidat-
ing land into larger units and developing large-scale government schemes for cereal
production;
●Supplying cheap food for urban areas to secure votes and to keep wages low by
controlling food prices, allowing cheap imports of food, and subsidizing farm inputs
and nance for large farms;
S76 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
●Providing food security in rural areas by allocating small parcels of land to rural
households for subsistence farming and developing small-scale government
schemes;
●Vesting land in the state with allocation controlled by governments and implemen-
ted by the chiefs in rural areas, which encouraged nepotism and corruption when
allocating land; slowed the process of change as the farming population voted as
instructed by the chief; consolidated land into large units allocated to the urban and
rural elite; and created non-transferable use rights for small farmers – this made it
dicult for farmers to borrow money, for good farmers to expand, for young farmers
and entrepreneurs to start farming, and for others to exit (Bjornlund, 2009); and
●Developing government schemes for social and political objectives, but without
securing their economic integration and nancial viability – this resulted in land
underutilization, and in mistrust which impeded ecient management.
The urban policy focus contributed to a lack of development of transport infrastructure
and created a disincentive for private investment in supply channels, processing and
distribution networks. Consequently, small-scale farmers’ viability suered. Farm house-
holds therefore maintained diverse income streams, allocating their labour and nancial
resources between multiple activities to maximize total household income rather than
prioritizing the productivity of irrigated land and water resources. Hence, both large and
small-scale government schemes performed poorly and were underutilized.
Hypothesis 2b: inappropriate technologies and agricultural practices
Several aspects of the technologies and agricultural practices used within government
schemes have inuenced their poor performance:
●Western agricultural production systems were viewed as modern and more appro-
priate. This led to the continued transfer of increasingly costly technologies, leaving
farmers in government schemes dependent on large quantities of expensive inputs.
●Inadequate hydrological and topographical knowledge of watersheds and ood-
plains produced inappropriate scheme designs. Large government schemes
resulted in villages and farmlands being ooded upstream; hundreds of thousands
of farmers, herders and shers downstream being deprived of the annual ood-
water regimes; and environmental impacts (salinization, waterlogging, and water-
borne diseases) that reduced productivity.
●The opportunity oered by irrigation to apply water for two annual crops was often
in conict with farmers’ other, more lucrative livelihood activities and was not always
utilized.
The cost of the technology and the added social complication of managing water supply
and maintaining infrastructure must be justied by increased prosperity. Under the
conditions discussed under hypotheses 2a and 2b, this did not happen. Farmers could
not aord to engage in high-input, capital-intensive farming practices, and the benets
never matched the construction, operation and management costs of the schemes.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S77
Hypothesis 2c: inappropriate lending practices and global trade policies
This section is based on the detailed evidence provided in Bjornlund et al. (2020). Here we
only provide key references to substantiate the hypothesis.
The WB and IMF were introduced as apolitical eorts to (re)build the world economy
through infrastructure development. Loans initially had long grace periods, xed
exchange rates, and below-commercial interest rates to protect young economies
(Stiglitz, 2004).
During the 1960s and 1970s, global agricultural commodity prices declined, and it became
clear that the debt levels of African countries were unsustainable. Despite the WB auditing
department’s nding that half the audited rural developments in Africa failed over the 1965–
86 period, the WB continued to approve loans for these developments – that is, without
implementing its own recommendations (Toussaint et al., 2008; World Bank, 1965, 1988).
During the nancial crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, the IMF promoted uctuating exchange
rates and higher interest rates (Stiglitz, 2004) without safeguarding developing countries.
A combination of sharply falling commodity prices after 1980, a rising US dollar, and
soaring interest rates meant that 52 African countries went bankrupt in the 1980s (Stiglitz,
2004). Renancing was subject to the IMF’s structural adjustment policies, which
demanded that governments stop spending on agricultural projects, social welfare,
education, health care and industry, and that they introduce deregulation, privatization
and trade liberalization.
As a result, agricultural research was privatized, strengthening the inuence of Western
science and focusing on crops of economic interest to commercial farmers, rather than
responding to Africa’s food needs and building on past local successes. These changes
weakened the state, and debt drained SSA’s countries of the funds necessary for infra-
structure investment. The structural adjustment policies eectively prevented govern-
ments from implementing policies protecting the agricultural sector and promoting rural
economic development.
Under the WTO’s free trade policies, SSA countries were prevented from protecting
local production from competition. In contrast, the developing world continued to sup-
port its farmers, to the extent that African farmers lost their competitive advantage of
being the most cost-ecient producers – for example, Benin produced cotton at less than
half the cost of US farmers (International Cotton Advisory Committee, 2001). Cotton
subsidies in the 2002 US Farm Bill guaranteed US farmers a minimum price of US$0.71
per pound, keeping US production articially high and distorting cotton prices
(Woodward, 2007).
Conclusion
This article argues that the poor performance of many government schemes in SSA is
caused by a complex set of factors associated with the production and market systems
introduced for export crops and subsequently institutionalized during the colonial period.
The focus on commercial export crops ignored existing local expertise, food requirements
and markets. The systems introduced by outsiders diverted resources from the locally
relevant production systems, which had evolved to meet local needs and to be responsive
to opportunities and risk. Decision making was centralized in the colonial systems, and
S78 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
outside the producers’ sphere of inuence. The export-oriented production system set
post-independence developments on a path-dependent course. The impact of this was
compounded by post-independence policies and institutions, which failed to integrate
government irrigation schemes into agricultural production and processing industries for
domestic and regional markets. Hence, these schemes did not become drivers of wider
rural economic development.
These developments have resulted in a lack of institutional exibility and political will
to adapt to evolving external and internal political and economic forces. In this context,
farming in government schemes was not protable for many farmers, and they were
therefore unable and/or unwilling to pay for and participate in maintaining the schemes.
Hence, the schemes have remained underutilized and have performed poorly, regardless
of investment in refurbishment. These ndings form the basis for four critical recommen-
dations for donors, policy makers, project designers and other stakeholders involved in
developing new irrigation schemes or rejuvenating old ones.
First, irrigation technologies must be designed by Africans for the specic socio-
economic and biophysical conditions, and for the benet, of Africa. Hence, they must
be cost-eective and be developed or introduced through participatory processes and
the engagement of African farmers. New technologies must be designed for African
conditions and not promote expensive inputs the rural economy cannot adopt. This
requires the involvement of locally engaged scientists and engineers with an under-
standing of, and respect for, African production methods and farming conditions.
Scientists from developed countries engaging in this process should be embedded in
Africa for extended periods to understand the conditions under which their technologies
will be used. The articles in this special issue analyze the impact of the use of cost-eective
and simple-to-use soil and moisture monitoring tools. They show that improved water
management can increase the productivity of existing ood or furrow irrigation systems.
However, new innovations are likely to be needed to initiate further improvements, for
example, the development of cost-eective technologies for exible water supply and
precision delivery of water along the furrow or the eld.
Second, the wider institutional arrangements must be designed so that schemes can
evolve in response to changing market conditions, enabling farmers to be protable and
pay the operational cost of irrigation while managing risk. This includes governance
structures that allow farmers to react and adapt to the signals of the value chain.
Infrastructure is required that can store, process and transport high-quality products to
markets in a timely manner. Farmers also need access to better agricultural and livestock
advice, inputs, equipment and nance. This requires policies designed to incentivize rural
economic development; for example, supermarket chains must source an increasing
percentage of locally produced and processed food.
Third, a paradigm shift is required among African politicians, agricultural professionals
and other stakeholders associated with farming and government schemes. Farmers must
be recognized as capable producers with rational farming practices and be engaged as
equal partners in the design and implementation of irrigation schemes and associated
processes.
Fourth, lending and trade policies must promote rural economic development, leading
to prosperous living conditions for Africans. If this had been the case during the boom in
irrigation developments, fewer African nations might have failed. Developing countries
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S79
must be allowed to use policies to protect their agricultural sector, as does the developed
world. And the EU and US should not undermine local production by dumping excess
agricultural produce in SSA.
An encouraging recent realization is that farmer-led AWM production systems and
individual private irrigators have been viable despite government policies. These systems
have proven resilient as they are rooted in long-standing traditions and a deep under-
standing of local context. Individual farmers can make quick choices as they are not
restrained by external institutions such as inexible water management arrangements,
cropping restrictions at odds with market signals, and rigid supply systems. That these
systems can be viable with their own institutions corresponds with Ostrom’s description
of the collective management of common pool resources. The question is, how can these
experiences be integrated into new and existing government schemes to improve pro-
ductivity? Although there is extensive documentation on how government schemes are
managed, there is scant evidence of the social dynamics in informal and farmer-led
systems and how they operate in SSA. This is a critical area for future research.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the important support received in writing this article from Ms Karen
Parry in structural and copy editing. The article was produced in the context of the project
Transforming Smallholder Irrigation into Protable and Self-Sustaining Systems in Southern
Africa, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (LWR/2016/137 and
FSC/2013/006) and by the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems with support
from the CGIAR Fund. We also acknowledge the signicant contribution of the two reviewers, who
spent considerable time and eort to provide valuable comments and contributions, resulting in a
much-improved article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research [LWR/
2016/137].
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Appendix 1. Endogenous African agricultural water management systems
supplying local markets and trade
This section draws on Underhill (1984) to demonstrate that agricultural water management (AWM)
systems were complex and adapted by communities to the local biophysical environments. AWM
practices and outputs were part of integrated livelihood strategies consisting of cropping, livestock
and non-farming activities, such as shing, hunting and cottage industries. Importantly, AWM
production also supplied local markets and long-distance trade. AWM systems were spread widely
across SSA (Figure 2), covering diverse landscapes such as oodplains, coastal areas and highlands
(see Appendix 2 for a comprehensive list).
Floodplains (ood recession)
AWM systems on oodplains encompassed the management of rising and receding oods to
extend the area and duration of water inundation and increase agricultural production. This
included management of shallow and deep oods in wetland areas. Where required, weirs diverted
water via canals to more distant elds, extending the areas that could be planted. As oods receded,
overland ow was restricted to ditches or retained by bunds to promote inltration. These areas
could then be utilized for continued production as oods receded (fadama/dambo or seep-zone
systems). The use of bunds also enabled the recharge of groundwater, facilitating supplementary
irrigation with lifting devices. Water trapped in depressions created areas with shallow seasonal
waterlogging called bas-fonds (Turner, 1986). AWM practices also integrated the management of
surface and groundwater to simultaneously provide both drainage and supplementary water. For
example, in the small valley swamps of Rwanda and Burundi raised beds were used to manage
drainage, while sub-irrigation and splash irrigation provided supplementary water (Hekstra, 1983;
Sirven et al., 1974).
The livelihoods of millions of people and their livestock benetted from the annual or biannual
ood regimes. Based on generations of experience, farmers selected crop varieties according to the
depth, extent and duration of the anticipated ood. In western Africa, farmers managed their crops
to secure yields across variable seasonal conditions, employing a complex polyvarietal intercrop-
ping system that used nitrogen-xing legumes to add fertility and enhance yields on poor soils. The
requirements and tolerances of dierent crops and varieties were well understood (Richards, 1986).
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S91
Rice was the main crop because of its tolerance to prolonged inundation. Production risk was
managed by mixing rice with crops that could tolerate prolonged ooding but performed better
with shorter ooding, e.g. red-seeded sorghum (Adams, 1986).
In wetland areas often considered unproductive by Western scientists, communities used a
range of shallow and deep-water farming systems. Farmers planted oating rice in areas with
seasonally deep oods, such as the inland Niger and coastal river deltas (Linares, 1981). In areas
with seasonally shallow oods, crops were planted on raised beds to drain excess surface water,
for example in the Cuvette Centrale in the Republic of Congo and the Bangweulu Wetlands in
Zambia (Comptour et al., 2018).
Coastal areas (tidal and estuary waters)
In coastal areas, farmers adapted their AWM practices to optimize production for low- and high-
rainfall regions (Bos et al., 2006) (Figure 2). Salt-tolerant rice was grown in tidal deltas and
mangroves, where seawater was held back by high volumes of freshwater and salt could be leached
out of the soil. In West Africa, this practice straddled the Sahel low-rainfall region (e.g. Senegal and
Gambia) and the high-rainfall regions (Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria). In the low-rainfall
region, saltwater could reach up to 70 km inland (Linares, 1981, 2002; Marzouk-Schmitz, 1984). Here,
dykes and drainage ditches were constructed to protect the elds from saltwater intrusion and to
control the timing, depth and duration of the freshwater oods. Canals directed rainwater runo to
ush the salt out of the soil, and bunds controlled tidal ooding (Agyen-Sampong, 1991; Bos et al.,
2006; Davidson, 2015). In the high-rainfall regions, soil was naturally ushed during the growing
season and rainfall prevented saltwater intrusion (Adefurin & Zwart, 2016). Mangrove rice growing
in eastern Africa, extended up to 50 km inland, as in the river deltas in Mozambique, the Ruji and
Ruvuma River deltas in Tanzania the Tana and Sabaki River deltas in Kenya and the Jubba and
Shebelle River deltas in Somalia (Spalding et al., 1997).
Hill furrow and ood diversion in the highlands
Highland areas oered signicant AWM opportunities, such as on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria, and the
Great Rift Valley encampments (Figure 1). In these fertile and densely populated areas, hill furrow
systems enabled a high degree of water management, using terraces, water transfer and control
structures. Other systems were used in the steep mountain catchments, where large volumes of
water were discharged over a few hours (ood diversion/spate) and recession ows only lasted a few
days. For example, weirs were used in the narrow foothill strip between the Ethiopian Highland and
the Red Sea to divert oodwaters into bunded eld basins (Food and Agriculture Organization &
United Nations Development Programme, 1987). These areas were therefore also densely populated.
S92 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
Appendix 2. Examples of agricultural water management endogenous to sub-Saharan Africa.
Bioregions, location Characteristics Crop grown Reference
1. Traditional agricultural water management
1.1 Floodplains
Rising floods
Deep floods Niger River inland delta
Sokoto in Nigeria
Planted as the water rises; rice grows in several
metres of water and is harvested from boats
Floating rice Linares (1981)
Shallow water
and raised
beds and
mounds
Seasonal or permanent
flooded areas
Sub-irrigation and splash irrigation Rice and taro Rwanda and Burundi (Hekstra, 1983; Sirven et al., 1974)
Cuvette Province in the Congo Basin, Bangweulu Basin in Zambia
(McKey et al., 2014)
Rising water Inland swamps Planted ahead of flooding; transplanted when
water is 5–10 cm deep
West Africa (Andriesse & Fresco, 1991)
Receding flood
Dambo/fadama Floodplains Various way of slowing down the receding
water: bunds, blocked drainage and more
Sorghum, pearl
millet, finger
millet, fonio,
cowpea, tubers
Fadama (Senegal River, Inland Niger Delta, Lake Chad)
In West Africa (Adams, 1986; Caillié, 1830)
Dambo in Eastern Africa (Turner, 1986; Roberts, 1988)
Omo River, Ethiopia (Bassi, 2011)
Tana River Kenya, Kilombero and Rufiji River (Beez, 2005; Gilbert, 2016)
Lifting
groundwater
or river water
Shallow water tables,
riverbanks
Extracted by calabash robe buckets or
shadoofs through shallows wells 2–3 m
deep
Mixed crops Northern Nigeria (Adams, 1986; Turner, 1984)
Volta Delta in Ghana (Chisholm & Grove, 1985)
Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe (Bullock, 1992)
Animal-drawn waterwheels Mixed crops Sudan (Shaw, 1966)
Water trapped
in
depressions:
bas-fonds
Depressions with water
trapped
Often labour-intensive (or worked with
animals) because of heavy soils and weeds
Millets West Africa (Mackel, 1973; Turner, 1986; Raunet, 1985)
1.2 Hill furrows
Greater Rift Valley and
encampment
River diversion and furrows, bunds, some with
terracing
Mixed crop and
vegetables
Konso highlands, Ethiopia (Hallpike, 1972)
Agoro Valley, Uganda (Watson, 1952)
Banana gardens Banana Marakwet, Cherangani, Taita and Pokot Hills, Mbooni Hills Kenya
(Davies et al., 2014; Jackson, 1976; Sutton, 1973)
(Continued)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S93
Appendix 2. (Continued).
Bioregions, location Characteristics Crop grown Reference
Hills and semi-arid
plateaus in the Sahel
River diversion and furrows; runoff water and
soil conservation; lifting, shadoof; planting
pits
Fonio, sorghum,
millet, vegetables
Engaruka, Sonjo, Pagasi, South Para Hills, Mt Kilimanjaro, Meru,
Usambara, Uluguru irrigation Tanzania (Grove, 1993; Huijzendveld,
2008; Sutton, 1969; Westerberg et al., 2010)
Eastern plains, Jebbel Marra, Nuba Hills, Sudan (Critchley et al., 1990)
Dowa and Shire Highlands in Malawi; Angonia area of Mozambique,
Inianga Range in Zimbabwe; Lyndenburg, Transkai, Bokoni,
Drakenberg Escarpment and Zululand of South Africa (Ayers, 1989;
Widgren, 2010)
Djenne, Dogon, Mali (Ayers, 1989; Widgren, 2010)
Jos, Kamaku, Eggon, Tangala Waja,- Plateau, Nigeria (Widgren, 2018)
Ader Doutchi Maggia, Niger (Critchley et al., 1990)
Hounde, Kassena, Burkino Faso (Widgren, 2018)
Atakora, Togo/Benin (Widgren, 2018)
Mandara, Cameroon (Widgren, 2018)
Escarpments in eastern Angola (Beekman et al., 2014; Tempelhoff,
2008)
1.3 Tidal/estuary water
Coastal estuaries,
seasonally saline
rivers (up to 70 miles
inland)
Embankments, dikes, canals, and sluice gates
to bar marine water entering the fields,
while capturing rainfall for cultivation
Rice varieties West Africa, the Sahel low-rainfall region (e.g. Senegal and Gambia) and
the rainforest region (Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria) (Bos
et al., 2006; Carney, 1996; National Research Council, 1996; Pelissier,
1966)
Eastern Africa (Spalding et al., 1997)
Along freshwater rivers Inland floodplains Rice varieties Niger Inland Delta, (Carney, 1996; Linares, 1981)
1.4 Food
diversion
(spate)
Runoff from highlands Diversion of flash floods in ephemeral river
onto fields
Millet and wheat Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia (Sandford, 2013)
Northern Kenya (Muthigani, 2008)
Cameroon (FAO, 2016)
S94 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
Appendix 3. Precolonial large schemes, equipped for irrigation.
Bioregions:
location Characteristics Crop grown Reference
Large schemes, 1800s
(‘large’ is based on
references)
Swahili plantations Rising and receding floodwater Spices and rice Malindi in Kenya, Pangara (Nicholls, 1971)
Kilwa in Tanzania (Ngigi, 2004)
Sokoto Caliphate
(Kano)
Rising and receding floodwater Cotton and dyes Nigeria, Sokoto floodplain (Abubakar, 1975; Lovejoy, 1978)
Coastal estuaries
Seasonally saline
rivers (up to
70 miles inland)
Tidal waters
Embankments, dikes, canals and
sluice gates and capturing
rainfall for cultivation
Rice varieties Western Africa, the Sahel low-rainfall region (e.g. Senegal and Gambia) and the
rainforest region (Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria) (Bos et al., 2006;
Carney, 1996; National Research Council, 1996; Linares, 2002; Pelissier, 1966)
Eastern Africa (Spalding et al., 1997)
Inland rice-
growing areas
Inland floodplains Rice varieties Niger Inland Delta, (Carney, 1996; Linares, 1981)
Runoff from
highlands
Flood diversion Millet and wheat Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia (Sandford, 2013)
Northern Kenya (Muthigani, 2008)
Cameron (FAO, 2016)
South Africa, 1800s Northern Cape
Settlement
schemes
Sugar plantations
River diversion schemes
River diversion schemes
River diversion schemes
Lucerne
Mixed
Sugar
Northern Cape (Visser, 2013)
South Africa, e.g. Bonnie River Valley (Visser, 2013)
Plantation in Natal (Lewis, 1990) and Swaziland (Von Maltitz et al., 2018)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S95
Appendix 4. Examples of colonial schemes.
Bioregion, location Characteristics Crop grown Reference
Centrally controlled Gezira scheme, 1920s Dam and river diversion (tenant) scheme, 460,000 ha Cotton Sudan (UK) (Bernal, 1997)
Tokar scheme, 1900s Dam and river diversion (tenant) scheme, 33,500 ha Cotton, sugar Sudan (UK) (Bashier, 2014)
Gash scheme, 1920s Dam and river diversion (tenant) scheme, 105,000 ha Cotton, rice Sudan (UK) (Bashier, 2014)
Office du Niger
scheme, 1930s
Dam and river diversion (tenant) scheme, 60,000 ha Cotton, sugar Mali (Ertsen, 2006; Robins, 2013; Van
Beusekom, 1989, 2000)
Kenya, 1905 Kibwezi and Makindu, connected to Uganda rail link; indentured
and soldier settlement
Rice, sugar Puertas et al. (2005)
Kenya, 1920s Drainage of the Karatina Swamp; river diversion, private schemes Mixed, sugar Duder (1993)
Nyanza Province, Coast Province (Wanyande,
2001)
Kenya, 1950s Mwea, Hola and Perkins (tenant) schemes Rice Ngigi (2004)
Private/public
funded
Zimbabwe 1912–27 dam and diversion, private/public funded Mixed Scoones et al. (2018)
Estates Mozambique
Zimbabwe
Tanzania
1890s dam and diversion
1930s dam and diversion
1930s dam and diversion
Sugar
Sugar
Sugar
Central Mozambique ((Dubb et al., 2017)
Triangle and Hippo Valley (Dubb et al., 2017)
Northern Tanzania, (Dubb et al., 2017)
Farmer-managed Sierra Leone Scarcies polder rice irrigation scheme Rice Richards (1986)
Nigeria Village irrigation schemes, 40–200 ha; digging of wells, 1905 Cattle, meat and skins Sokoto Province (Nwa, 2003)
Asiwaju (1982)
French West Africa Tube wells for pastoral herders, 1940s; cattle-operated water lift
and a Persian wheel
Nurseries, peanuts,
vegetables
Sahel (Thèbaud, 1990)
Nwa (2003)
Mali Submersible dikes, canals and sluice gates, 10,000 ha Rice Dia-Tenenkou, Mopti region, Mali (Roberts,
1996)
S96 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
Appendix 5. Areas equipped for irrigation and under agricultural water management (AWM).
Equipped irrigated
a
area per country, 1900–2000 (thousand ha)
Data from Freydank and Siebert (2008)Area under AWM (thousand ha)
Data from FAO (2016, Table 28)Colonial period After independence
Country 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Increase in
area, 1960–2000 Area equipped
Wetland /
valley
bottom
Flood
recession
Total area
under
AWM
Angola 38 44 50 56 62 68 74 75 80 80 80 6 80 320 400
Benin 20 10 10 12 12 12 7 19
Botswana 1 2 1 1 1 1 7 8
Burkina Faso 1 1 1 1 1 2 4 10 10 20 25 21 25 21 46
Burundi 11 14 14 15 21 10 21 83 104
Cameroon 17 10 27
Central African Republic 1 1 1 0.5 0.5
Chad 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 12 16 26 19 30 125 155
Congo Dem. Rep. 7 10 11 11 11 2 1 14
Congo, Rep. 1 1 1 2 2 2 2
Cote D’Ivoire 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 20 44 66 73 69 73 16 89
Ethiopia 10 13 16 19 22 24 27 57 111 260 290 263 290 290
French Guyana 1 1 2 2 2
Gabon 4 4 4 6 8 4 5 5
Gambia 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 13 15
Ghana 2 3 3 4 4 5 14 15 20 30 31 19 31 31
Guinea 5 7 10 12 15 17 20 50 90 90 95 75 95 95
Guinea Bissau 2 4 7 9 12 15 17 17 17 17 25 8 23 29 51
Kenya 5 6 7 8 9 10 13 29 40 54 85 72 103 6 109
Malawi 1 4 18 20 55 54 56 62 118
Mali 10 12 14 16 18 21 57 61 60 78 236 179 236 440
b
676
Mauritania 1 4 7 10 13 17 20 30 49 49 45 25 45 33 31 109
Mozambique 7 26 65 105 118 111 118 118
c
236
(Continued)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S97
Appendix 5. (Continued).
Equipped irrigated
a
area per country, 1900–2000 (thousand ha)
Data from Freydank and Siebert (2008)Area under AWM (thousand ha)
Data from FAO (2016, Table 28)Colonial period After independence
Country 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Increase in
area, 1960–2000 Area equipped
Wetland /
valley
bottom
Flood
recession
Total area
under
AWM
Namibia 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 4 4 6 8 6 8 2 10
Niger 2 4 7 9 11 13 16 18 23 66 73 57 74 12 86
Nigeria 3 3 3 3 3 33 185 200 200 230 290 105 293 1500
d
1793
Rwanda 3 4 4 4 9 6 9 94 103
Sao Tome and Principe 2 3 5 6 7 8 10 10 10 10 10 0 10 10
Senegal 10 20 30 40 49 59 69 78 62 94 120 51 120 30 150
Sierra Leone 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 20 28 30 29 29 126 155
Somalia 45 52 60 67 75 82 89 95 125 200 200 111 200 110
e
310
Sudan 100 163 277 300 396 593 1203 1625 1700 1800 1863 660 1863 1863
Swaziland 32 40 40 45 50 18 50 50
Tanzania 18 38 120 144 184 166 184 117
f
301
Uganda 2 4 6 9 9 7 9 50 59
Zambia 1 2 9 19 46 156 154 155 100 255
Zimbabwe 2 5 7 20 46 80 109 174 154 174 20 194
Total 241 335 505 571 713 977 1933 2621 3069 3724 4420 2487
Growth % 39% 110% 137% 196% 305% 702% 129%
a
This dataset only refers to ‘equipped for irrigation’ and does not specify AWM.
b
FAO (2016) says 60,000 ha, but Dtmzthe (1997) says 440,000 ha.
c
FAO (2016) says zero ha, but Beekman et al. (2014) say 118,000 ha.
d
FAO (2016) says 682,000 ha, but Ugalahi et al. (2016) say 1.5 million ha.
e
Basnyat and Gadain (2009) says 110,000 ha under flood recession, but this is not mentioned by FAO (2016).
f
Tanzania (FAO, 2016) says 117,000 ha, but counted as irrigated in the country table of the same year.
S98 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
Appendix 6. Examples of schemes developed after independence and known areas under agricultural water management (AWM).
Type of scheme Crop Issues Reference
Independence, 1960–2000
Sudan +
1,270,000 ha
Gravity schemes: Gezira + Managil 870,000 ha
New Haifa, Radah and Suki schemes, 310,015 ha
Pump schemes: increased to 575,370 ha
Gash and Tokar Spate schemes, 132,000 ha
Private or cooperative-owned schemes 402,735 ha
Cotton
wheat
Area equipped for irrigation 1,851,900 ha, only 54%
irrigated. Cotton schemes suffered from poor water
distribution, centralized and inadequate
management, tenants had lack of economic
incentives (de facto farm labour), and single-desk
commodity board for cotton were major issues.
Severe salinity issues at some schemes due to over-
irrigation and inadequate drainage; 500,000 ha
beyond rehabilitation.
Mahgoub (2014)
Madagascar +
893,000 ha
Large coastal schemes 780,000 ha are bas-fonds, e.g.
Lake Alaotra Irrigation Project (1970s) 100,000 ha
Rice River valleys and low-lying marsh areas with barrages
prone to destruction by cyclones.
Low productivity due to high input costs, distance to
urban markets, lack of capital and poor
infrastructure.
Government decentralization of power and investment
has turned into disinvestment of responsibility, lack
of financial support for infrastructure upkeep and
investment.
FAO (2016); MAEP (2007);
Marcus (2007)
Mali + 179,000 ha Three large schemes: Segou, Office du Niger and Mopti
167,000 ha
Village and private pump 14,300 ha
Rice Inadequate infrastructure created bottlenecks in the
supply system.
Of the scheme area of 167,000 ha, 89% is irrigated.
Issues: land tenure, supply chain, top-down
management, and poor financing. Lack of
mechanization creates labour shortages; double
cropping is not widespread.
FAO (2016)
Controlled flood irrigation 190,000 ha
Flood recession cropping on 250,000 ha
Mixed Controlled flood irrigation and flood recession cropping
are managed by farmers. Farming systems are
labour-intensive, e.g. herbicide spraying for weeds. If
less than 5 km from the market these systems are
working well and very price-competitive. Research,
finance and better infrastructure would improve
outcomes.
Dtmzthe (1997)
(Continued)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S99
Appendix 6. (Continued).
Type of scheme Crop Issues Reference
Tanzania +
166,000 ha to
2002 +
+14,000 ha to 2013
1,447 irrigation schemes are publicly funded, mainly
surface water; 55,000 ha in large schemes, 111,000 in
small-scale
190,285 ha in small schemes
117,000 ha are under farmer-led irrigation
27,200 ha rainwater harvesting schemes (AWM)
Tea, coffee,
sugarcane,
cotton
Maize, rice, mixed
veg.
The regions with the most irrigation are Kilimanjaro,
Morogoro, Arusha and Mbeya. Most non-private
schemes have top-down management, and
producers are not linked to urban markets, giving
production gluts and low prices. Lack of storage
facilities, value adding and food processing facilities
leave farmers with little profit.
Farmer-led initiatives have no water security.
Tanzania (FAO Aquastat,
2016;
Food and Agriculture
Organization & New
Partnership for Africa’s
Development, 2005)
Zambia +
154,000 ha
126,500 ha commercial irrigated farms: 100,000 ha
developed as state farms but privatized in 1980s.
Developed areas are on the main highways in Kafue
Flats and on the fringe of the Barotse Floodplain
Smallholder and resettlement schemes 27,500 ha
Estimated 100,000 ha of small-scale flood and flood
recession farming
Coffee, bananas,
tea, sugar
Maize and veg.
Cattle
Cassava, rice,
veg.
Cattle
Poor/seasonal roads and missing bridges make
commercial agriculture away from main roads
difficult and dominated by pastoralists.
Large commercial farms, particularly along the
Livingston to the Cobber Belt road.
Small-scale African farmers lack capital, transport, input
and access to markets. Resettlement schemes
fraught, with local elite acquiring land.
Diminishing water inflows from Congo and Angola
affect size of flooded area, and dams reduce
downstream flow.
Zambia (FAO Aquastat,
2016;
Kuntashula et al., 2004)
Zimbabwe +
154,000 ha
In the 1960s, the White minority government financed
dams and smallholder schemes to stem rural-to-
urban migration
After independence (1980), continued to finance
smallholder schemes
Wetland and dambo cultivation estimated at 20,000 ha
Maize and veg. Top-down, government-managed smallholder
schemes with prescriptive cropping calendars
prevented entrepreneurship.
Credit and loans for groups of farmers were available
but little used, as farmers had not build trust in the
White minority government.
Policy emphasis on maize, lack of capital and inputs
give farmers poor economic return.
Zawe et al. (2015)
(Continued)
S100 V. BJORNLUND ET AL.
Appendix 6. (Continued).
Type of scheme Crop Issues Reference
Somalia +
112,950 ha
Spate irrigation on the floodplains of the Shabelle and
Juba rivers: irrigated areas developed with barrages
and distribution canals (one on the Juba, 1980s, four
on the Shabelle from the 1920s, two from the 1950s
and three in the 1980s); 112,950 ha under controlled
irrigation and 110,000 ha under flood-recession
before civil war
Somalia has the highest interannual variations of
rainfall in Africa. Widespread environmental
degradation and unmaintained dykes allow
uncontrolled floodwaters to destroy infrastructure
and inundate scarce cultivated land and settlements.
Weak political and administrative management and
failure to address access to water, fuelling conflict
and civil war in 1980s–1990s. Only 100,000 ha of the
equipped areas was cultivated in 2018.
Basnyat and Gadain (2009)
Nigeria +
105,000 ha
Public schemes 104,500 ha, of which 34% is irrigated
Privatized sugar scheme, 5,600 ha not producing
Private small schemes 128,000 ha
Flood-recession (fadama) cropping 682,000 ha, of
which 55,000 ha are equipped in the lowland (FAO,
2016).
Farmer-led hill irrigation, e.g. Jos Plateau (acreage not
available), initially lifting water with shadoof, (1982)
now with pumps
Mainly rice
Sugar
Diverse: rice,
fishing, livestock
and cropping
Rice, maize,
cassava,
peanuts, veg.
The public irrigation schemes are old; 84% use pumps;
their infrastructure requires rehabilitation and in
some cases total replacement of pumping and other
equipment. Poor management led to farmers
pumping from supply canals outside scheme
boundaries, e.g. 3,000 ha outside the Hadejia
Jamaare scheme.
Most farmers do not pay for water. Charges are too low
to meet the cost of water delivery, which contributes
to the cycle of poor services leading to lack of
willingness to pay.
The information flow between policy, planning and
budgeting for public irrigation is dysfunctional and
ineffective. Most often policy directives are not
matched by corresponding budgetary allocations.
Data on operation and maintenance, farm inputs,
yields, and cost of produce are limited and
unreliable.
At the scheme level, there is no clear direction on crop
production because there is no effective linkage
between agriculture and water.
The Fadama project invested in improvements for
different user groups, e.g. fishing nets, milling and
improving farmers’ income.
Produce mainly taken to markets within Nigeria (Lagos,
Kano, Kaduna, Imo State) but also to neighbouring
countries, such as Chad and Niger. A major issue is
market access and market control by middlemen,
reducing farmers’ return.
Adelodun and Kyung-Sook
(2018); Nigeria National
Committee on Irrigation
and Drainage (2015);
Pasquini et al. (2004)
+: schemes established since independence.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT S101
