DEVELOPMENT-BURKINA FASO: When Rains Fail, Farmers Switch to Irrigation

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Brahima Ouedraogo

OUAGADOUGOU, Mar 5 2003 (IPS) - Alphonse Ouedraogo is no stranger to drought and famine, a perennial scourge which afflicts the impoverished West African nation of Burkina Faso always.

This year, Ouedraogo has some good news. Burkina Faso has produced 100,000 metric tonnes of corn and other cereals, thanks to small-scale irrigation method that villagers use during the dry season.

Until recently, most farming in Burkina Faso used to take place during the rainy season, which starts in June and ends in September. About 75 percent of crops are grown during the rainy season. ”Small irrigation schemes can improve the level of food production in Burkina Faso,” says Ouedraogo of Small Irrigation Schemes, a state-run project.

Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African Country, with a short rainy season and a long dry season, receives, in certain regions, annual rainfall of only 250 millimetres. There is potential to harvest nine billion cubic metres of underground water, and just as much surface water, in Burkina Faso in dry season, according to studies. The programme, which is supported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), aims to reduce rural poverty by limiting food shortages and providing additional revenues for farmers. Eighty percent of Burkina Faso’s population is involved in agriculture, a figure that accounts for 30 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). ”When people talk about climate changes and droughts, we’ve noticed that in certain regions, it’s not because they don’t get as much rain as they need to grow crops, it’s because rainfall is poorly spread out during the year,” says Ouedraogo. Burkina Faso, which has 1,500 dams, should not be experiencing food shortages and famine, he says. These dams, Ouedraogo explains, are capable of storing five billion cubic metres of water. ”At almost all of these dams, the water evaporates before it can be used. We can therefore, grow irrigated crops not only during the dry season but also when farmers suspect a dry spell coming,” says Ouedraogo. Since the pilot project was launched two years ago, 1,000 hectares of unused land have been put into production. This year, farmers hope to prepare 20,000 hectares to produce, on average, between 60,000 and 80,000 metric tonnes of cereal, or 15 to 20 percent of cereal production in Burkina Faso, whose deficit often reaches 400,000 tonnes. According to some studies, only 3.7 million of the country’s nine million hectares of arable land are in use and government hopes that popularisation of small-scale irrigation will create a surplus of 30,000 to 40,000 metric tonnes to meet the cereal needs of 11 million Burkinabes. ”Donor organisations need to dig deep in their pockets and support this programme. That’s how you fight poverty,” says FAO representative in Burkina Faso, Marie Noelle Koyara. ”We can control nature if we want to improve our welfare. There are certain countries like Cape Verde, where it rains only once in three or four years. But small irrigation schemes have enabled Cape Verde to meet more than 50 percent of its needs in fresh vegetables. So you can see that instead of waiting for rain, we can grow crops with irrigation,” says Koyara. ”In Bangladesh, they discovered the pedal pump in the 1980s which we now use in Africa. With these pumps, the people of Bangladesh diversified production and increased yields, and more importantly, they got women involved in agriculture,” adds Koyara. The Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, to which nine west and central African countries belong, says an improved hectare of irrigated crops allows a dozen families to each generate 300,000 to 400,000 CFA (about 500 to 667 U.S. dollars) of disposable income every farming season. ”The big problem is changing the mindset of our farmers. Habits have to change radically,” says Salif Diallo, the Minister of Agriculture, Water, and Oceanic Resources. ”We’re planning on increasing farmers’ awareness of these techniques over the course of the next several years so that small irrigation schemes become part of their lives.” The government, with the technical assistance of the FAO, has provided farmers with pedal pumps and training in making basic irrigation ditches, which can be reconfigured for winter crops, on their own. Twenty technicians have been trained in each of Burkina’s 13 regions to help farmers use the pedal pumps. ”We want small farmers to use very simple forms of low-cost techniques. We no longer need big, expensive machinery to produce more crop,” says Ouedraogo. The cost of simple irrigation technology, like pedal pumps, ranges between 70,000 and 100,000 CFA (117 and 167 U.S. dollars) per hectare, compared to 900,000 or 10 million CFA (about 1,500 or 16,667 U.S. dollars) for more complex methods.

While waiting for additional funding, the World Bank has granted 1.5 million U.S. dollars to farmers. The Agricultural and Commercial Bank of Burkina Faso has given two million U.S. dollars to buy pedal pumps and fertiliser. And, the European Union has committed itself to finding markets for the surplus cereals.(END/IPS/AF/WA/DV/TRA-FRE/BO/SZ/MN/03)