Impact of Participatory Irrigation Management

Case Study: Cocurirwa Cooperative, Rwamagana Rice Project, Rwanda

Mostly swamps in Rwanda are surrounded by volcanic hills with small streams flowingto discharge runoff and seepage water. Many rice projects are implemented to developthe swamp by providing gravity irrigation facilities. Most of the projects are funded bythe government and after construction the projects are handed over to rice farmer's cooperatives. These cooperatives were functioning with bureaucracy setup leadingto inefficient performance resulting poor land productivity. This research has beenconducted in COCURIRWA in order to bring out the quantum of costs and the benefitsagainst the cooperative costs over a period of time and thus verify the hypothesisthat benefit cost ratio of PIM system is positive. The field survey was conducted inthree cooperatives (COCURIBU, CORICYA and COCURICYI) in order to collect viewsand suggestions from members of cooperatives studied and other stakeholders on operation and maintenance of irrigation facilities. The results prove that through Participatory Irrigation Management the currentsystems of irrigation management are performing well through the involvement ofprogressive farmers in water distribution and collection of irrigation fees. Irrigatedarea is increased due to availability of sufficient water as indicated by relative watersupply ratio more than one. Tail end farmers are favoured by PIM implementationresulting higher fee collection and reduction of conflicts between farmers. Farmemployment generation and Paddy productivity increased significantly due to PIM.The Benefit Cost Ratio is positive as calculated from costs of activities done bycooperatives studied compared to the income generation of cooperative over thestudy period. With the favorable benefit-cost ratio of the three cooperatives studied, it is evident that the investment in Participatory Irrigation Management has yieldedsignificant improvements and returns to the farmers. Thus investment in promotingParticipatory Irrigation Management can be regarded as a worthwhile investmentopportunity in irrigation projects in Rwanda. Introduction The Republic of Rwanda is one of the most poverty-strickencountries in the world. It is one of densely populated state inAfrica where the total population is about 9 million, resides inthe total surface area, 26,338 km2 Rwanda is often called "thecountry of thousand hills" consisting of hills and marshlands,where around 90% or more of the population residing in ruralareas are engaged in subsistence farming. About 60 percent ofthe population still earns less than US $1/day. For nearly two andhalf decades Rwanda has been facing problems of food security.This trend was exacerbated by the sad events of genocide andwar of the mid-1990s. About 87% of the population lives in therural areas on small farms of less than 1 ha with a productionof 47% of the national GDP. The productivity from these farmsis low due to continued land degradation by erosion and lowutilization of fertilizers and other agricultural inputs.Marshlands are estimated at 165,000 hectares from whichonly the half has been exploited so far for agricultural purpose. However, the pattern of exploitation of these swamps is moretowards traditional methods because of lack of appropriatetechnology. Hitherto, inappropriate and inadequate exploitationof swamps in Rwanda has led to their irreversible degradationand continuously declining soil productivity. Faced with theabove problems the Government has instituted several measuresto address them. One of which is the Green Revolution. Underthis a number of pathways are being pursued in order to addressfood security, reduce poverty, maximize crop production per unit area and improve the quality of life of the rural people. Crop production under smallholder irrigation is seen as one of themeans to implement the Green Revolution. With the objective ofimproving food security, the Local Authority would like to reducethe water losses, expand the area under smallholder and improveon the efficiency of irrigation and thus maximize water useefficiency and land productivity. Main problems and constraintsfaced in on-farm irrigation management are inefficient water use, high cost of irrigation systems and quality of irrigationequipment. Excessive amount of irrigation water has been usedin the existing traditional surface irrigation . The developmentstrategy is now changed from quantitative oriented to qualitativeoriented through sustainable development approach andappropriate technology for more effective use of irrigation waterwith high value of irrigation. Water realized around 40% of theworld's food crops are produced by irrigated agriculture. Theperformance of irrigation and drainage is critical to the foodsupply and to farmers incomes, as well as to the environment Study background The ultimate goals in managing irrigation water are efficiency,equity and sustainability. Efficiency has been achieved if everydrop of water has been properly allocated and used, without anywaste. The goal of equity means that water is fairly distributedamong users. Some farmers may have an advantage over others.Those at the head of a canal have an advantage over those livingdownstream, as they have first access to water. Influentialfarmers may have better access to water than poor farmers. Insome cases, ideals of efficiency and equity may be in conflict. The goal of sustainability means that the users of today shouldmaintain the quality and quantity of water resources for the useof future generation. Participatory irrigation management canoffer one way of improving water user efficiency Source: MedCrave Online

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Taxonomy

• Agriculture
• Irrigation