Field Irrigation Practice and the Performance of Smallholder Irrigation in Zimbabwe: Case Studies from Chakohwa and Mpudzi Irrigation Schemes
Abstract
Developing economies have often regarded smallholder irrigation as a means to ensure food security, create employment and promote agro-based industries in rural areas. However, of late smallholder irrigation has come under scrutiny as its performance has fallen short of expectations. This has prompted the need for an understanding of irrigation practices and their impact on performance so that remedial measures can be implemented. An analysis of smallholder irrigation practices and the subsequent impact on performance for two irrigation schemes located in the drier parts of Zimbabwe are presented. One is a surface irrigated scheme (Chakohwa scheme) measuring 90 ha while the other is drag hose sprinkler irrigated scheme (Mpudzi scheme) measuring 48 ha. Farmer practices were assessed through observation and use of structured interviews. Technical performance measures relating to the efficiency, adequacy and uniformity of irrigation events were assessed using standard field evaluation methods. To a large extent, the farmers\' practices were determined by their perceptions and understanding of irrigation events. An assortment of irrigation scheduling methods was practised, water application approaches were not as per system design and there was a general tendency to over irrigate. The performance of both schemes was generally poor as the technical performance measures did not match the expected irrigation standards. At Chakohwa irrigation scheme, application efficiency averaged a low 24.7%, deep percolation losses a high 75%, and requirement efficiency a high of 87.3%. At Mpudzi drag hose irrigation scheme, the distribution uniformity was 44.9%, application efficiency of the lower quarter was low at 26.4%, and Christiansen\'s uniformity coefficient averaged 62.6%. These results indicated that the effectiveness of irrigation was low to medium implying an inefficient utilisation of resources, especially water, in irrigation. This has implications on sustainability of smallholder irrigation. Despite these technical performance shortcomings the irrigation schemes contributed significantly to the livelihoods of the irrigators.J. agric. sci. technol. Vol.5(1) 2003: 1-21
Open access articles published in the Journal of Agriculture, Science and Technology are under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The CC BY license permits commercial and non-commercial re-use of an open-access article, as long as the author is properly attributed.
Copyright on any research article published in the Journal of Agriculture, Science and Technology is retained by the author(s). The authors grant the Journal of Agriculture, Science and Technology with a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified.
Use of the article in whole or in part in any medium requires proper citation as follows:
Title of Article, Names of the Author, Year of Publication, Journal Title, Volume (Issue) and page. Links to the final article on the JSRE website are encouraged.
The Creative Commons Attribution License does not affect any other rights held by authors or third parties in the article, including without limitation the rights of privacy and publicity. Use of the article must not assert or imply, whether implicitly or explicitly, any connection with, endorsement or sponsorship of such use by the author, publisher or any other party associated with the article.
For any reuse or distribution, users must include the copyright notice and make clear to others that the article is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution license, linking to the relevant Creative Commons web page. Users may impose no restrictions on the use of the article other than those imposed by the Creative Commons Attribution license.
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the article is made available as is and without representation or warranties of any kind whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise and including, without limitation, warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, absence of defects, accuracy, or the presence or absence of errors.
