Farmers’ Logics in Engaging With Projects Promoting Drip Irrigation Kits in Burkina Faso

Opportunities and challenges of irrigation in Morocco, Spain, and India: A critical analysis

“…Indeed, the survey showed that conversion to drip irrigation by farmers is mainly driven by social and cultural reasons related to higher convenience in daily tasks as drip irrigation is an automated and less time‐consuming technique. Another social reason motivating farmers for drip irrigation adoption is the access to subsidies, opportunities to create alliances, and modernization of infrastructures, which is coherent with conclusions of previous studies mentioned in discussion of the results (Berbel & Mateos, 2014; Salhi et al, 2012; Wanvoeke et al, 2016). Results of this work denote the divergence between decision makers objectives in national plans of irrigation conversion like NIWSP in Morocco (water saving) and farmers objectives.…”

The conundrum of low-cost drip irrigation in Burkina Faso

“…We were also asked to pay more attention to on-going projects, in which, it was said drip irrigation was successfully adopted on a large scale. This new visit actually confirmed our first assessment, that is, that projects promoting drip kits are mostly discussed and assessed on the basis of what happens in pilot sites, with the prime indicator being the number of kits disseminated even if this does not give any information on whether these are used or not and with which results in farmers fields (see Venot, 2016 andWanvoeke et al, 2016). 5 At most a few hundred dollars, with a basic unit cost at or under 1USD/m 2 , and a plot size under 1000 m 2 .…”

“…Out of these 87 sites, drip kits were in use in 28; these were sites of on-going projects. All other sites had once seen drip kits (maybe) but farmers had stopped using them as soon as projects ended and no sign of it could be found (Wanvoeke et al, 2016). For instance, of the several hundreds of farmers that were said to have benefitted from the African Market Garden Project (AMG), we could only identify one who had continued using drip irrigation after the project ended in 2007 (see Wanvoeke et al, 2015b for a detailed description of the history and results of the AMG project).…”

“…One oft-used strategy to demonstrate the success of drip kits is to literally "create the context/conditions" for these to be effective and successful through the establishment of experimental plots involving 'pilot' farmers. Dedicated field extension agents actively support these farmers during the project implementation phase, helping them become the entrepreneurs of development narratives and project documents, in other words the "public face" of drip irrigation (see Wanvoeke et al, 2016 for a description of one of these public face farmers).…”

“…(see chapter 14, this volume) 3 The problems faced to reach the initial targets are largely linked to difficulties (1) regarding procurement and (2) ensuring a steady supply of good quality drip kits. This would lead IFAD, the funding agency, to lower its targets and redefine the project institutional setup (see Wanvoeke et al, 2016 for further details). By 2015, more kits had been "procured" but the end of the project and absence of follow up makes it unclear if these kits have reached farmers, let alone are used.…”