Effectiveness of agricultural water management technologies on rainfed cereals crop yield and runoff in semi-arid catchment: a meta-analysis (original) (raw)
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Irrigation and Drainage, 2014
Agricultural water management interventions play a critical role in mitigating hunger during droughts and dry seasons in southern Africa. A study was conducted in Malawi to compare the performance of improved agricultural water management interventions with traditional water management practices to assess the performance of the interventions on crop yield and water use. The study used questionnaires and focused group discussions to collect data from farmers and key informants. The results showed significant gains using regulated surface irrigation compared with unregulated surface irrigation. The results showed that yield increases of 33 and 37% for onion and tomato respectively were obtained from wetland seepage irrigation compared with upland cultivation. Treadle pump irrigation increased crop production by 5–54% compared with water can irrigation. Treadle pumps also increased gross and net incomes by ≥12%, suggesting that farmers using the treadle pump were able to realize higher incomes across all crop enterprises compared with farmers using water cans. However, there is a dire need to improve the efficiency of the surface irrigation systems for rice production because the water applied was about two to three times the gross irrigation requirement which could result in environmental degradation through increased salinity and waterlogging. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Mixed crop-livestock farming system is a major livelihood strategy in most sub-Sahara African countries. Low water use efficiency and water scarcity characterize the dominant rainfed agricultural production system in the densely populated highlands of Ethiopia. Improving water productivity in the rainfed system is among the ways of overcoming the water scarcity challenge. This study was conducted in Meja watershed, located in Jeldu district, West Shewa in the Ethiopian part of the Blue Nile Basin to estimate economic crop water productivity based on agro-ecology and crop management practices. The watershed was classified into three landscape positions (local agro-ecologies) and major crops representing at least 70% of each landscape position were identified through discussion with farmers and development agents. Five farmers field were randomly selected for each major crop and crop management practices implemented by the farmers were monitored and yield (grain or tuber and straw) was measured at harvest. The local market value of the crops and the production cost was estimated based on the local market value for labour and other inputs. CROPWAT model was used to estimate effective precipitation based on weather data generated using NewLocClim and crop characteristics. The result indicated that the landscape positions, crop variety and management practices significantly influenced the net economic water productivity. The net economic crop water productivity for barley, wheat, tef, sorghum and maize grains and fresh potato tubers were 3.31, 2.45, 3.09, 3.01 and 5.20 and ETB 13.56 m-3 , respectively. Similarly, physical water productivity of the crops ranged from 0.47 for teff to 9.98 kg m-3 for fresh potato tubers. Hence, farmers can enhance economic benefit from the land and water resources they are endowed with rainfed by using improved agronomic practices that could raise grain/tuber and biomass yield. Enhancing improved input use, improving access to market for outputs and integrating livestock with crops may further augment the benefit at system scale.
2018
Food security is a top priority concern on the Zimbabwean socio-political agenda. Zimbabwe’s food security is challenged by several physical, socio-political and policy factors, including: population growth; industrialization and urbanization; land and water use changes, water shortage; income changes and nutritional evolution. This paper explores the effects of water management practices on crop yields in smallholder irrigation schemes. CROPWAT was used for data analysis on two convectional cereal crops (maize and sugar beans). Results show that there was a significant difference in the yield of plots with drains and plots without drains for both maize and sugar beans production. This meant that drains had a positive effect on the yields of maize and sugar beans and implies that different water management practices affect crop yields differently. Good drainage practices improved crop yields. The recommended policy action is that food crop farmers on smallholder irrigation schemes s...
2012
As the population of many countries in the sub Saharan Africa (SSA) region continues to grow rapidly, the carrying capacity of its agricultural land is becoming lower, bringing closer the land frontier. Consequently, agricultural productivity and food security in SSA are being seriously threatened by the steady decline in soil fertility. The need therefore to economically examine the adoption of soil and water management technology (SWMT) options to improve agricultural production becomes imperative in order to evaluate the impact of their uptake by the resource-poor African farmers. Using the counterfactual outcomes framework to estimate the "Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE)" of SWMT adoption on households' crop production value, results indicate that the adoption of SWMT increases the value of total crop production by 17-24% per household. Furthermore, the impact could be higher to 22-33% within the population of the farmers who are involved in the SSA CP IAR4D's intervention programme. The findings indicated that there is scope for improving farmers' income from crop production through increased use of the SWMT. This also suggests that there is the need on the part of the stakeholders in the IAR4D's Innovation platforms to explore more avenues for providing adequate incentives, particularly technical assistance to the farmers to use a lot more of the SWMT options on their farms.
A study was conducted in Malawi to compare the performance of improved agricultural water ma- nagement interventions with traditional water management practices to assess the impact of the interventions on crop yield and water use productivity. The study used questionnaires and focused group discussions to collect data from farmers and key informants. The results showed significant gains in crop yield, farmer income, and water use productivity using the regulated surface irrigation compared with unregulated surface irrigation. Treadle pump irrigation increased crop production by 5% - 54% compared with water can irrigation. Treadle pumps also increased gross and net incomes by >12% suggesting that farmers using the treadle pump were able to realize higher incomes across all crop enterprises compared with farmers using water cans. However, there is a dire need to improve the efficiency of the surface irrigation systems for rice production because the water applied was about 2 to 3 times the gross irrigation requirement (~10,780 m3·ha－1) which could result in environmental degradation through increased salinity and water logging.
Environmental Science & Technology, 2013
This study quantifies the potential effects of a set of technologies to address water and fertility constraints in rainfed smallholder agriculture in South Africa, namely in situ water harvesting (WH), external WH, and ecological sanitation (Ecosan, fertilization with human urine). We used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool to model spatiotemporally differentiated effects on maize yield, river flow, evaporation, and transpiration. Ecosan met some of the plant nitrogen demands, which significantly increased maize yields by 12% and transpiration by 2% on average across South Africa. In situ and external WH did not significantly affect the yield, transpiration or river flow on the South Africa scale. However, external WH more than doubled the yields for specific seasons and locations. WH particularly increased the lowest yields. Significant water and nutrient demands remained even with WH and Ecosan management. Additional fertility enhancements raised the yield levels but also the yield variability, whereas soil moisture enhancements improved the yield stability. Hence, coupled policies addressing both constraints will likely be most effective for improving food security.
Trends of productivity of water in rain-fed agriculture
2005
In Sub-Saharan Africa, rain-fed agriculture is the dominant source of food production. It is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. However, yields from rain-fed agriculture are often very low. But there is an enormous opportunity to raise crop yield of rain-fed agriculture especially by focusing on the aspect of increasing productivity of water. In order to formulate and adopt appropriate and adequate options for increasing productivity of water in rain-fed agriculture, there is a need to have an understanding of the trend of productivity of water in rain-fed agriculture. In this paper, an analysis of the trend of productivity of water (PW) for five crops cultivated under rain-fed conditions in Mbarali District, Mbeya Region, Tanzania, was carried out using secondary data. The crops included maize, sorghum, beans, potato, and groundnut. The PW (eta) for maize, sorghum, potato, beans and groundnut had peak values of 0.49kg/m 3 in 1993/94, 0.47 kg/m 3 in 1994/95, 3.07kg/m 3 in 1993/94, 0.33kg/m 3 in 1996/97, and 0.20kg/m 3 in 1994/95 cropping seasons, respectively. Evapotranspiration deficit caused by either mid cropping-season dry spell or early cessation of rainfall and low rainfall utilization efficiency were the primary drivers of the PW in rain-fed agriculture in the area.
PLOS Water
Development of irrigation technologies and agricultural water management systems holds significant potential to improve productivity and reduce vulnerability to climate change. Our study dealt with the behavior of irrigation water productivity, partial nutrient balance and grain yield of wheat under the application of different irrigation water management technologies in the Koga irrigation scheme in Ethiopia. For our analysis, we considered three nutrient fluxes entering and leaving farmers’ fields. Our experimental design had three irrigation blocks with three different irrigation water management practices (wetting front detector, Chameleon soil moisture sensor and farmers’ practice as control) on three farm plots replicated in each block. To calculate irrigation water productivity and grain yield of wheat, the amount of irrigation water applied and the agronomic attributes of wheat yield were recorded during the irrigation period. Further, three input and output variables were c...