The Regional Workshop on the Future of Large Rice-based Irrigation Systems in Southeast Asia was convened by FAO in Ho Chi Minh City, 26-28 October 2005, with the support of the Evaluation Study of Paddy Irrigation Under Monsoon Regime (ESPIM) Project funded by the Government of Japan and the Vietnam Institute for Water Resources Research, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Viet Nam. The major objectives of the workshop were to identify strategies, opportunities and interventions for the sustainable management of large rice-based irrigation systems in Southeast Asia over the coming decades in the context of improved management of water resources, and to promote collaboration in the region.
The workshop included a half-day's field trip to an irrigation system and two-and-a-half-day's plenary presentations, group discussions and plenary discussions, which focused on three crucial questions whose answers could determine the evolving character of large rice-based irrigation systems over the next 20 to
25 years, namely: How would agriculture and rice production evolve in Southeast Asia? What changes would be required in irrigation service provision by the large rice-based irrigation systems? How would ongoing and expected reforms and investment programmes measure up against the projected needs of the region? About fifty experts and representatives from international, regional, and subregional organizations and national agencies and institutions, including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam, participated in the workshop.
In addition to a general review and analysis of regional trends and challenges related to water, rice, agriculture, economy and environment, as well as irrigation policies and strategies recommended and adopted previously, the workshop produced three major outcomes:
1) | Modernization of the irrigation systems and their management to increase their flexibility and insert them into river basin management, while taking into account the multiple functions of agricultural water management, is more required than ever. | |
2) | New layers of complexity have been added to our understanding of irrigation, from multiple use and social complexity, to multiple use, multiple ecosystem and livelihood functions, and agro-socio-economic-ecological complexity. | |
3) | To respond to this complexity, management needs to be made more professional and present institutional reform models need to be evaluated and overhauled to respond to new demands and characteristics of farmers. | |
4) | Evolution scenarios, objectives and strategic responses will vary greatly according to the types of irrigation systems and their socio-economic contexts. Non-rice drivers will play an important role in their evolution. | |
5) | New recommendations can be characterized as: moving away from the generation of both positive and negative externalities by accident and from development of autonomous farmers' responses by neglect, to explicit management of multiple roles and explicit recognition of farmers' service and other objectives, and of their contributions to overall efficiency and productivity, for instance by pumping, and of the costs thus incurred by them. | |
6) | The main focus in irrigation modernization will remain improving the performance of existing assets. New systems may be still developed in predominantly agrarian economies and in ecosystems with comparative advantages, but their planning and appraisal processes should be reformed to adhere to improved water governance. |
Table 1. Evolution scenarios of different irrigation schemes
National and Sub-national context | Economic and agriculture profile | Strategy and policy | Type 1: Reservoir gravity | Type 2: Off-river gravity | Type 3: Off-river pump | Type 4: Conjunctive | Type 5: Integrated management of deltas |
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Focus is outside agri. Post-agriculture | highly diversified agriculture; resources competition; high environmental concern; diets shifting; need to conserve certain level of food production capacity; watermultifunctionality link (more classical environmental issues) | Reduction/ decomissioning of rice irrigation areas; specialization; improve water productivity; protect environment and water quality; government investment for modernization | 0 | - | + | + | - |
Optimizing multiple use; economically justified; limited number of sites available for new systems | Reduce, merge or neglect because of low reliability; convert to type 3 or 4; convert to different crops/land use | Increasing energy costs; crop diversification; rice phased out economically justified; limited number of sites available for new systems | Highly flexible; farmers decide; market rules (export possibilities) (many more use pumps) | Urbanization; optimizing multiple use (environment, drainage issues, peri-urban agriculture, urbanization); more crop diversification | |||
Agriculture exportmain focus;intermediate | On the way to diversification; quick demographic transition; further improvement of food security; need rice exports for foreign exchange earning+C6 to stabilize rice production | Stabilization and modest development of rice irrigation areas; development of small systems; increase financial selfsufficiency | Not economically justified by agriculture alone but may expand | 0 | 0/ | + | Expand in the short term then decline because of urbanization, sea level rise, salinity? |
Anticipate multiple uses | Improve, modernize (endless); inherent limitations of supply | Likely reduction because of energy costs (for paddy) | Highly flexible: farmers decide; market rules (export possibilities) (several farmers use pumps) | Optimize multiple use; expensive drainage (environment, drainage issues, peri-urban agriculture, urbanization) | |||
Agriculture main focus; low level of development | Rely on rice production; urgent need for food security; possess comparative advantage; few alternatives; link between water, ecosystems, and livelihoods | Further water resources development; further rice irrigation expansion; strong government financial support and external assistance | 0 | + | + | + | Expand in the short term then decline because of urbanization, sea level rise, salinity? |
Too expensive for rice but plan for future or multipurpose structure | Low costs; comparative advantage (compared with other options) | Affordable investment; subsidized O&M | Highly flexible: farmers decide; market rules (export possibilities) (some rich farmers use pumps) | Developing paddy systems; not yet urbanized |
Table 2. Recommendations from four thematic working groups
Financing and multiple roles |
Design and operation |
Management and institutions |
New large irrigation projects |
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