The study identified the following key issues relating to the availability of water, institutional support and economic opportunity which dispose smallholders to adopt and sustain modern irrigation methods.

1. The technology must offer the farmer sufficient financial return or a reduction in labour demand, to justify the capital investment.

2. Farmers need to grow high-value crops for an assured market in order to cover the costs of the equipment.

3. Increasing national or regional water shortage is an important factor motivating governments to actively promote the use of modern irrigation technologies.

4. Government must enact policies promoting the technologies for the smallholder, making it attractive to manufacturers and dealers to develop and promote appropriate irrigation technologies for smallholders.

5. Suitable systems must be relatively cheap and straightforward to operate and maintain.
No single type of modern irrigation technology is universally appropriate. Technologies should permit cost recovery for the farmer within one to two years and be suitable for use on small and irregular shaped plots. Equipment should be simple to operate and maintain, durable and reliable in often harsh conditions. Examples of existing technologies that best meet these criteria include: piped distribution networks including portable, layflat hose, low technology, gravity sprinklers, pressurised bubbler (only suited to orchard crops) and draghose sprinklers.

6. Farmers require effective technical support in the initial years of adopting an innovation.
Farmers will be engaged in a learning process with direct consequences for their income and financial situation. In some cases, the penalty for failure may be ruin and the loss of livelihood. Unless farmers are trained in the correct techniques for irrigated cropping systems, the returns they achieve will be sub-optimal. Farmers need to know when, and how much water and other inputs to apply to crops, as well as how to overcome common operational and maintenance problems. Government agricultural services may not be adequate and experts from the private sector may be needed to advise on cropping; system design; installation; operation and maintenance. Trial and demonstration plots can be effective in promoting a technology amongst smallholders as part of a wider package of support.

7. Individual, communal and joint state/farmer-owned and operated schemes are all possible, and each offer advantages and disadvantages. The preferred system will depend on local criteria. Generalised policies should not be imposed from outside.

The project was successful in achieving its stated output.

It has drawn together information on the use of modern irrigation technologies from eleven countries. By identifying the similarities and contrasts between those environments where modern irrigation technologies have been successfully adopted and those where they have failed it has drawn important general conclusions relating both to technical characteristics and wider economic and institutional factors that must be in place to enable uptake to occur.

Cornish, G. 1997. Modern Irrigation Technologies for Smallholders in Developing Countries. OD/TN 87 (HR Report). July 1997

Cornish G. 1998. Modern Irrigation Technologies for Smallholders in Developing Countries. Intermediate Technology Publications, London.

Modern irrigation methods for small-scale farms. GRID No. 10 July 1997

Cornish, G. 1998. Pressurised irrigation technologies for smallholders in developing countries - a review. Irrigation and Drainage Systems 12 185 - 201.

a) A paper, summarising the findings of the study was published in the technical journal Irrigation and Drainage Systems.

b) The report was published in book format by Intermediate Technology Publications

c) The knowledge derived from the study will directly inform the research continuing into improved peri-urban irrigation systems under R7132

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