The rationale for a focus improved water control in southern Africa is self evident in a region that is dependant upon rainfed production and which experiences prolonged dry seasons. What is less evident is the need to fine tune a balance between rainfed and irrigated agriculture. Of primary importance is the need to stabilise the rainfed systems and then create the opportunities for targeted investment in the irrigated sub-sector without over-gearing the sub-sector through (capitalising).
Addressing poverty
Poverty in southern Africa is widespread and entrenched. It is especially severe in rural areas, where sustenance for the vast majority comes from chronically low and volatile income from agricultural production. At the same time, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is increasing the demands to take care of those afflicted, while greatly reducing the human resources available. In urban areas, falling household incomes may reduce the capacity to buy food.
Low and uncertain incomes lead to food insecurity and vulnerability to internal and external shocks. It is widely held that the climate in the region is becoming drier and that the incidence of drought is increasing. Major droughts can have a devastating impact in southern Africa, where agriculture generally accounts for 20-60 percent of national income and 30-70 percent of employment. The 1991-92 drought saw the output of maize, sorghum, millet and pulses fall by 60, 55, 35 and 25 percent respectively. Even in non-drought years, agriculture affords virtually no margin to permit saving for investment or for a buffer for bad years.
In recent decades, the average annual economic growth of the national economies (2.3 percent) has barely exceeded population growth (2.2 percent). The number of people depending on agriculture for a livelihood has risen by about 7.7 million (16 percent) in the last decade. In recent decades, the agriculture sectors have been able to increase output by about the same proportion as the increase in population that depends on them for livelihood. There has been little change in the overall production pattern, resulting in little change in the quantities of food, saleable produce and available income. However, some successes in increasing cash cropping suggest that resource, technical and market conditions can induce farmers to respond to opportunity for more valuable production.
Without significant options for moving people out of agriculture into other sectors with higher income-earning potential, the sole option for alleviating or reducing poverty for large numbers of rural people is to increase the output of farming. The scope for increasing farm size is limited though there is some scope for developing land for new settlement (e.g. in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Where new settlement and resettlement are not practical, improvement in living standards will need to come mainly from intensification.
Overcoming rigidity
The low value of production from farms is attributable to their small scale and low productivity of land and of water. The production problem is compounded by the impact of variability in climate. Farmers face a complex array of interacting factors (natural resources, climate, economics and policy) that limit their capacity to improve the productivity of land and water. Their efforts to maintain and improve resource productivity fall into four main management areas: enterprise selection; crop and livestock husbandry; investment to increase productive capacity; and marketing.
Farmers may not always select enterprises most suited to their natural and economic environment. There appears to have been little change in how farmers use available resources; in general, crop and livestock yields are not increasing and the mix of crops is changing very slowly. Very high proportions of cropped area are used for staple crops despite their high production risk in fragile environments. These crops are of inherently low productivity and fetch intractably low prices.
Farmers seeking higher productivity need to apply appropriate husbandry practices in terms of: land preparation; timing and method of planting, weeding, fertilizing, pest and disease control; and water use, harvesting and storage. Deficiencies in any of these lead to lower yields and limit the potential for gain by improved supply of water.
Investment in farm development and production technology appears to be generally low. The very low proportion of cropped area equipped with irrigation facilities reflects a lack of investment by farmers, the public sector and the private sector. Farmers appear to be either unaware of the possibilities or not motivated to invest in enhancing the productive capacity of their assets, e.g. by adding lime to improve acid soils or by harvesting local sources of water.
Farmers have been slow to develop marketing practices to take advantage of the opportunities for diversified and higher-value crops created by policy reform. Farmers have not developed skills to fill the vacuum left by the scaling-down or disappearance of parastatal organizations. There have been some successes in the development of market linkages between large groups of farmers and large buying and trading companies but there has been less success in linking small groups of farmers with medium- and small-scale trading entrepreneurs.
Improving the investment environment
A complex set of factors that apply beyond the farm influence efforts to improve the productivity of land and water. These affect how farmers tailor their investments and operations by determining the opportunities for and constraints on improved farm management. The business environment in which farmers operate is determined largely by the rate and nature of economic growth and by the policy stances of government.
In recent years, policy reform in most of the ten countries has reduced macroeconomic imbalances, encouraged the private sector and reduced the ‘crowding-out’ behaviour of parastatals. However, significant obstacles remain to improving farm productivity within the sector-specific policy frameworks. The areas of most concern for creating a conducive climate are: marketing, credit, land tenure and infrastructure.
In the ‘marketing’ of agricultural products, market development has been minimal. The economic growth achieved appears to have had little impact on farmer exploitation of domestic market opportunities. In order to create opportunities for diversification and shifts to high-value crops, market development must be supported by attention to infrastructure and services.
The slow development of marketing systems exacerbates the limited market demand. The response of the private sector to the increased trading opportunities, especially for staples, has been subdued. Farmers, intermediaries and petty traders can all play greater roles in facilitating transactions.
Policy on credit for agriculture needs to be set within the overall savings and credit policy. Inappropriate relationships between deposit and lending rates distort behaviour and may lead to unwise investments. The reduced role of parastatals in rural credit provision has left a void in services to farmers. The agriculture sector has little capacity for savings to finance investments. Low returns to enterprises, high risks and high transaction costs deter the formal credit subsector from serving farmers.
Land tenure has a major impact on farmers’ investment decisions. If farmers are to be encouraged to invest in water and land management technology, they must be secure in the knowledge that they will remain its beneficiaries.
The several forms of infrastructure critical to farming and trading are not entirely adequate. Water storage and delivery facilities are vital to support crop and livestock production where technical and economic conditions are suitable. This is especially true for high-value crops with high and/or inflexible water requirements. Roads are essential to enable commercial intercourse. There is abundant evidence that farmers with reasonable access are more productive and better-off than those without. Crops requiring bulking and storage before delivery may need energy for cooling to prevent spoilage. Physical markets are required to bring larger volumes (especially of perishable and semi-perishable commodities) to large groups of purchasers.
In addition to investment and improved management within the farm, resolution of the problem of low productivity of land and water will require conducive policy formulation, institutional behaviour and investment beyond the farm for a long time. Nevertheless, there is considerable scope for improving the productivity of both land and water to raise incomes and reduce vulnerability to climate. This scope can be sought in the improved use of water resources to increase the productivity of land, with direct attention to the proximate and underlying problems being applied case-by-case. The methods for exploiting this scope vary and should be domain adapted.
The Regional Water Control Initiative for southern Africa is intended to lead to a range of investments by governments and private sectors, some with financial and technical support from external donors and concessional financiers. Achieving higher productivity depends not on such investments alone but on the interaction of all the factors mentioned above. It relies on: policy development; the application of clear, targeted strategies; and conducive structures and behaviour of all institutions concerned. Programmes for enhanced water control need to address all of these aspects.
Water use needs to be considered in the context of the overall development effort and rural development strategies. Water use programmes and projects need to consider it as both catalytic to the use of other resources and as an element within broader rural development efforts.
Setting priorities
Resolution of competing strategies. The diagnostic reveals that many conceptually linked strategies aim to reduce poverty or to increase income within a framework of management of natural resources. The strategies for any country or group of countries may conflict or compete for resources. Moreover, they tend to have many overlapping and duplicative features. The multiplicity of strategies causes difficulties for the intended beneficiaries. Further difficulty arises from confusion of purpose and from different strategies being domiciled in different institutions. Competition among donor and concessional financiers for high-quality programmes and projects and for ‘thematic areas’ exacerbates the difficulties.
Investing countries determine the highest priorities for their own attention and that of donors and concessional financiers so that project and programme action can be designed and targeted appropriately. Joint and individual action by the investing countries is essential for resolving competition among strategies and achieving unity of purpose, especially where donors and concessional financiers are involved. If mandated thus, the SADC would be ideally placed to initiate and coordinate the actions of its members in a drive to rationalize strategy formulation.
Priorities for agricultural production. It is not difficult to package technologies and techniques for improving the productivity of water and land into interventions in projects and programmes. However, interventions can succeed only if their targets and objectives are specified clearly in the formulation process. This requires that the goal of the proposed intervention be established very clearly. Different goals can lead to the specification of different targets and objectives, which are then reflected in very different programmes to influence farmers’ behaviour.
Challenged by a goal of immediate or early increase in food production for the greatest number of people, programme designers would almost certainly select as the target the very large population in the maize mixed farming system and prepare projects to increase the maize yields of small-scale farmers. However, a goal of maximizing increase in incomes would almost certainly lead programme designers to promote peri-urban production of high-value crops. A goal of reducing the loss of food production by vulnerable people in dry years would lead designers to develop programmes to secure water in those RMDs where drought is most likely to cause crop failure.
It is important to the selection and design of water control strategies that the role of cropping and livestock be stated clearly. The key question is exactly which forms and extent of poverty are to be addressed as priorities. For success, the countries themselves must set the goals and identify the targets. This requires cooperation from donors and concessional financiers, who should design approaches that serve the domestic requirements rather than their own priorities.
Reaching the most vulnerable. Different kinds of droughts require different types of risk management (Annex 6). Farming practices must adjust to the variable rainfall of the semi-arid and subhumid zones of southern Africa. Farmers should be able to survive a single season with below average rainfall without resorting immediately to food aid or other forms of assistance. Traditionally, farmers have diversified their production systems, e.g. mixed farming of crops and livestock and the use of both uplands and lowlands (wetlands). Some farmers grow cereals and root crops, exploiting different crop water requirements.
The farmers most vulnerable to single-season droughts are those who rely on rainfed cereals and do not produce enough to keep carryover supplies. Farmers may not have enough land to diversify (e.g. RMD9 in Malawi), be too poor to venture into livestock (e.g. in the semi-arid zone of Zimbabwe, RMD28), or not have enough labour(child-and single-headed households). In addition, farmers in remote areas have fewer opportunities to earn off-farm income and to receive assistance from urban relatives. Water control programmes should give some priority to the needs of these and other most vulnerable groups, choosing from among the available instruments to design interventions for specific problems in specific domains. Farming-system development should build on traditional risk management strategies, including diversification in the case of subsistence farmers.
A sequence of dry years will affect nearly all agricultural enterprises, including irrigated farming. It is the task of government and farmers’ organizations to act on long-term weather forecasts, advising farmers and adjusting policies. Examples are the timely offtake of livestock, promotion of drought-resistant crops and the close monitoring of water supplies for irrigation.
Elements of a programmatic approach: guiding principles
Guiding principles are the vital link between the setting of priorities and goals and the specification of objectives to be pursued by programmes and projects. Principles enable policy formulation, institutional actions and investments to be directed clearly to achieving subsector, sector and societal goals. However, adherence to principles is difficult and relies on firm direction-setting, scrutiny of action and supervision. Furthermore, it requires strong political commitment.
Diversity of interventions. The diagnostic reveals a vast array of ‘cases’ in which interventions may be made. Geographic areas vary in terms of natural resources, climate, population, access, economic opportunities, etc. Other cases in which interventions may be made include a special group within the society, a single commodity, a group of commodities, a specific market and a technology. The conditions applying in any two cases are unlikely to be so similar that a common remedy could be appropriate to any identified problem. For water control, a ‘one size fits all’ approach should not be attempted. Therefore, the first principle of programme design should be: statements of objectives and design of interventions need to be case specific.
Water and soil linkages. In most farming enterprises, water can be used effectively only as a complement to other land resources. Water and soil, together with light and a favourable temperature combine to provide a physical environment for crop growth. Ranching needs both water and pasture (or natural vegetation). Prevailing land forms influence the design of water supply systems. In crop production, the linkage between water and soil is particularly strong. Most of the water used by the crop comes from moisture stored in the soil. The water storage capacity of the soil is extremely important to productive water (rainwater and irrigation water) use. However, the infiltration capacity and permeability of the soil affect various production systems in different ways. For example, wetland rice requires soils with low permeability whereas most other irrigated crops require good infiltration and good permeability. Water brought to the farm may change the fertility status of the soil by salinization.
There is little point in improving water supply if limiting soil factors are not addressed. In some crop production systems in southern Africa, soil fertility is the main constraint on increased production. This is particularly true in the dry subhumid zone where most of the crop production takes place and where most of the people live (RMD9, RMD10, RMD15, RMD17 and RMD21). The guiding principle here is: measures to improve water use must always be accompanied by measures to increase and maintain soil fertility. In this context the role of conservation agriculture needs to be stressed. The goal of conservation agriculture is to maintain and improve crop yields and resilience against drought and other hazards while at the same time protecting and stimulating the biological functioning of the soil (FAO, 2002). Central to the concept of conservation agriculture is conservation tillage. Conservation tillage entails growing crops with minimum disturbance of the soil and with crop and weed residues covering at least 30 percent of the ground. Other essential practices include: crop rotation with legumes, optimum weed control and preservation of crop residues. The permanent soil cover inhibits the germination of many weed seeds. However, herbicides may be needed in the first few years.
The major advantages of conservation agriculture are: water and soil conservation, increased soil fertility, moderation of temperature extremes, more evenly-spread labour requirement and the opportunity to plant early.
A possible disadvantage is that conservation agriculture requires considerable management skills and, in many cases, a radical change in attitude. Livestock must be excluded from cropped fields throughout the year, which may be difficult in the dry season when grazing is scarce. Many of the benefits accrue only in the long term. Initial land improvement, such as liming, ripping or removal of persistent weeds and shrubs, is sometimes necessary.
Conservation agriculture has been promoted widely in southern Zambia(dry subhumid zone). During the dry season, permanent planting stations are prepared: organic matter and fertilizer are placed in holes where soil moisture also becomes concentrated. Crops are grown in rotation, including a legume (pigeon pea or cowpea). The system offers farmers the opportunity to raise yields and improve yield stability.
Private sector approaches. The success achieved in increasing farm productivity, output and incomes seems most associated with private sector approaches that treat the farmer as a critical role player, e.g. the various forms of nucleus estate, contract farming and outgrowing. The success of many government-supported ‘market linkage’ projects shows how well farmers can respond to incentives in a private sector framework. For example, by acting as a private-sector oriented link-maker, the Agrilink Project in South Africa (sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development) has made considerable progress in bringing farmers to markets and markets to farmers. Other evidence comes from irrigation schemes in Zimbabwe, where farmers who are free to select their own crops and have the appropriate water supply facilities and management have been successful in producing and marketing high-value crops. The role of government is to provide a policy and regulatory framework and to provide infrastructure and services to encourage the development of production and of marketing services with strong motivation and commercial discipline. However, there will still be a useful role for governments in providing some equity funds for irrigation schemes as a catalyst for private sector investment.
Market-led interventions. In addition to the general principle of private sector approaches, there is an imperative that intervention selection and design follow market demand rather than supply infrastructure and services. Project conceptualization should start from identification of possible demand rather than of resources and production possibilities. The guiding principle is: all interventions - be they public or private - should be demand driven.
Domain-adapted production. The diagnostic has made a start on what may become a useful analytical tool in helping to rationalize resource use by introducing the RMD concept. The RMD brings together ecological conditions, current farming systems, location and economic opportunity for consideration of production possibilities and enterprise selection. Much work will be needed to develop and refine the RMD concept into an effective planning tool. However, the preliminary work shows the need for specialized production. The emerging principle is: encourage and support domain-adapted crop and livestock enterprises.
Designing bankable projects
There is limited available analysis on the economic and socio-economic factors that are relevant to sound strategy formulation and subsequent investment decisions. In particular, there appear to be few rigorous, definitive studies of the costs of and returns to water applied for agriculture. There are comprehensive studies of the economic situations of rural people but the actual impact of water-oriented projects on rural income generation is rarely separated out and lumped in with other farm inputs. However, given the generally ‘lumpy’ nature of water infrastructure investments(as opposed to low intensity, dispersed investments in rainfed systems), such studies should be undertaken early in the formulation of water control programmes.
Any decisions on the use of water sources are best made in the light of accurate costing of the options. For example, as a major consideration in investment decisions, the unit cost of water from each possible source within each domain should be known. A particularly important case may be that of water harvesting, which is widely held to be ‘cheap’ because it requires mainly family labour. However, such labour may not be cheap in the context of other demands on families’ time.
A study of the costs of delivering water to farms in varying circumstances would be helpful in conceptualizing programmes and projects and subsequently in planning and decision-making. The study would estimate the unit cost of water by calculating: (i) the present value of the quantity of water supplied over the chosen evaluation period; and (ii) the present value of all costs of providing that quantity of water.
A group of international organizations (World Bank, the African Development Bank, the IFAD, the International Water Management Institute and FAO) is about to commission a set of seven studies related to water: (i) regional demand for products of irrigated agriculture; (ii) irrigation development planning;(iii)private sector investment;(iv)agricultural water use from a basin perspective; (v) pro-poor agricultural water use; (vi) costs of agricultural water use; and (vii) health and environment aspects. Care should be taken in writing the terms of reference for the costs study in order to ensure that it uses correct analytical methods and has adequate coverage of locations and water sources.
A rigorous analysis of the returns to water is needed to guide strategies, planning and investments. The analysis should estimate the value of output of a unit of water. For each crop, the study should calculate the present value of the output from a crop imputable to water, divided by the present value of the stream of water used.
Designing country programmes
Established techniques for project feasibility study and ex-ante appraisal are adequate to accommodate the prospective investments in water control in southern Africa provided that the problems being addressed are well identified and that correct practice rules in the analyses. The conditions apply equally for all resources in all countries. Institutions commissioning or undertaking studies should stress three points in their specifications:
Target locations and groups. Studies should be conducted to derive ways of solving clearly specified difficulties for identified groups of people. The nature of the poverty problem should be documented prior to feasibility study in order to ensure that effort is directed clearly.
Attention to specific regional and country difficulties. Of primary importance among the specific difficulties is the impact of HIV/AIDS. The pandemic will affect: (i) programme design through its impact on population and demand for food; and (ii)project design through reducing the capacities of families to produce food. Other major issues such as gender should also be set as requiring specific attention.
Attention to markets. All project designs should include and specific analysis of whether there is real demand for the products and proposals for easing market constraints.
Policy issues affecting the outcomes of investment in water resource projects should be addressed at national and sector levels and within the design of projects. National and macroeconomic policies cannot be geared specifically to one subsector of agriculture. However, programmes for water control can incorporate attention to national and macroeconomic policy in two ways. First, policy dialogue and advocacy can encourage governments to accommodate the needs of the water subsector in framing policy. Second, donors and concessional financiers should give priority to assisting those investments in countries with conducive policy frameworks. The same principles apply to encouraging reform of agriculture sector policy.
Project design is an effective tool for bringing policy considerations into play. It is especially important to set obligations and regulations that encourage farmers to develop business approaches to their operations. A second vital issue within projects is the level of capital cost recovery and charges for annual costs. These have critical impacts on the profitability of farms and enterprises and on the viability of public-sector funded programmes.
Programme flexibility. The most important feature of country programmes is their internal diversity and their flexibility. Internal diversity comes from programmes being designed to address multiple difficulties in water control facing farmers. Each programme should deploy resources to address wide varieties of problems. The ‘menu’ should be one of cases to be addressed rather than of instruments to be applied. Flexibility should come from empowering programme managers, in concert with the investing governments, to change the problems being addressed, the approaches followed and the instruments applied as circumstances change.
