Irrigation in Africa: the need for a boost

In a recent report[1], the Malabo Montpellier Panel – a group of seventeen renowned international experts in agriculture, nutrition, and the environment – is sounding the alarm. In Africa, barely 6 billion 300 million hectares of cultivated land is irrigated, compared to 14 billion 300 million hectares in Latin America and 37 billion 300 million hectares in Asia. The scale of the challenges facing the continent in feeding a rapidly expanding population and reducing poverty, while the threats of climate change are becoming more acute, requires making irrigation a real political priority. The Panel lists the responsibilities of each country – governments and the private sector, whether acting alone or in partnership – to increase investment and improve the governance of irrigated areas.

The problem, in reality, is essentially confined to sub-Saharan Africa. North African countries provide farmers with better access to water. Morocco, for example, has long established a specific institutional organization, at the national and local levels, to develop irrigation, which now covers nearly 20,000 million hectares of the arable land. Under the Green Morocco Plan, launched ten years ago, the area irrigated by drip irrigation has increased to 450,000 hectares, with an official target of 550,000 hectares by 2020.

Africa's poor irrigation performance perfectly illustrates the anti-agricultural bias that has long driven public policies south of the Sahara, a bias from which they are only just beginning to emerge. The contrast with Asia is striking. According to our estimates, based on data published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture[2], the average value of gross agricultural product per hectare, at the beginning of the 1970s, was higher in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) than in developing Asian countries (table). Forty years later, the situation has reversed: a hectare of land used for crops or livestock generates a gross product almost twice as high in Asia. However, at the same time, the share of cultivable land equipped for irrigation has stagnated at 3 % in sub-Saharan Africa, while it has increased from 24 % to 38 % in Asia: the improved seeds/inputs/irrigation "package" brought by the Green Revolution has been very effective.

Yet there is considerable room for maneuver. According to the Malabo Montpellier Panel, given the water capacity and expected rates of return on investment, the irrigated area in sub-Saharan Africa could increase almost fivefold, to 38 million hectares. According to our estimates, the share of irrigated arable land in this region would then reach 16,100 million hectares. Since a plot with access to water produces on average two to three times more than rain-fed agriculture, the resulting additional irrigation could increase agricultural production in countries south of the Sahara (including South Africa) by 12 to 24,100 million hectares.

Of course, the construction of irrigation infrastructure alone is not enough to trigger effective agricultural development, as shown by the disappointing results of the installation of three large dams in Mali, Senegal and Burkina Faso.[3]Small-scale water projects are promising and farmers' water management practices must be recognized and valued.[4]. It is still necessary for each household to have sufficient irrigated areas, for the resource to be preserved, and for farmers to benefit from credit, inputs, and real access to the market. Irrigation is only one ingredient in a sustainable intensification strategy for small producers. But it is an essential part of it, neglected for too long and which now deserves all the attention.

[1] Water-Wise. Smart Irrigation Strategies for Africa, Malabo Montpellier Panel Report, December 2018.

[2] International Productivity USDA ERS, October 15, 2018, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/international-agricultural-productivity/

[3] Bazin F., Hathie I., Skinner J. and Koundouno J. (Ed.) (2017). Irrigation, food security and poverty – Lessons from three large dams in West Africa. International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

[4] See in particular Schonberg T. and LN Core, Ensuring a water and food secure through farmer-led irrigation, February 20, 2017, http://blogs.worldbank.org/water, and Woodhouse P. et al. (2017). African farmer-led irrigation development: reframing agricultural policy and investment? The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 44, No. 1.