Exploring ways to increase public investments in agricultural water management and irrigation for improved agricultural productivity in Southern Africa

Abstract

This paper explores ways to increase public investments in agricultural water management and irrigation for improved agricultural productivity in Southern Africa, with a specific focus on Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. The analysis was based on a critical review of literature and assessment of the national agricultural investment plans and agricultural/water policies in the study countries. Despite the potential to improve agricultural productivity, irrigation does not currently play a significant role in Southern African agriculture. There have been efforts and formal commitments at the continental, regional and country levels to promote investments in agricultural water management and irrigation to improve and sustain agricultural productivity. However, despite these commitments, actual implementation has been a challenge and the first 5 years of national agricultural investment plans have passed or are now coming to an end without much progress having been made regarding actual investments. Lack of adequate resources and institutional capacity have been some of the challenges affecting implementation of the investment plans to meet commitments in sustainable land and water management. Overall, as countries plan for the second phase of the CAADP programme, there are opportunities to ensure that investments in agricultural water management and irrigation and complementary technologies are prioritised and allocated adequate resources for implementation.

Measuring Baseline Agriculture-Related Sustainable Development Goals Index for Southern Africa

“…The overall results point to a water stressed region. Despite a lot of agricultural freshwater withdrawals, a lot of agriculture activities (particularly smallholder agriculture) are rainfed and less than 5% of arable land is under irrigation [31]. There is need not only to increase area under irrigation, but to improve efficiency and sustainable water use in the agriculture sector.…”

Analysis of the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics and influencing factors of China’s herbivorous animal husbandry industry

“…Therefore, based on relevant researches, the proportion of productive land, land production capacity and the proportion of agriculture suffering disasters are selected as the three indicators to characterize the natural endowment factors that influence the development of herbivorous animal husbandry industry; regarding the economic society, existing researches show that economic development provides agricultural development with a market environment, and urban residents are the main consumers of animal products [18]. Therefore, per capita GDP, urbanization rate, and Engel coefficient of urban residents are selected to characterize the impact of the external environment of the economic society on the development of herbivorous animal husbandry industry; in agricultural production, labor force is one of the three traditional production factors [19], and mechanized operation and irrigation facility construction are the optimal choices to improve the agricultural production capacity [20]. Therefore, agricultural labor productivity, mechanization level and effective irrigation rate are used to reflect the agricultural technological factors; in terms of the policy, transportation infrastructure construction is the most basic force driving agricultural development [21].…”

An Evaluation of the Primary Causative Factors Affecting Durability of Flow Diversion Simple Weirs in Muchinga Province in Zambia

“…Irrigation technologies, whether large or small in scale, play an important role in improving and unblocking irrigation potential in rural sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) [1]. Irrigated agriculture at a smallscale level also referred to as farmer-led irrigation, has become an essential tactic for improving land and water productivity and providing opportunities for income generation, piecework, food security, and poverty reduction in many regions of the world [2,3].…”