Guest Voices: Irrigation Puts a Check on Hunger in Malawi

For the next installment in our series of posts from Concern Worldwide we have a story about building irrigation systems in Malawi. Concern along with partners Hope for the Heart established a co-operative that allows members to share irrigation equipment.

The month of January is usually the busiest in Chitukula, an agricultural community situated in rural Lilongwe in central Malawi. With the onset of the rains, most farmers in Chitukula are busy in their fields determined to make the most out of the heavy rainfall.

Contrary to the surrounding hub of activity, Wellington Kachigamba’s pace (46) has slowed. On this usually labor-intensive Wednesday morning, he sits with legs outstretched on his tobacco shed verandah whilst stringing together his first crop of tobacco into bunches for drying. He looks up at the hundred or so bunches perched on the trusses of the shed and smiles with satisfaction.

“I am now living a life free of worries,” says Kachigamba as he lays down another neatly stashed bundle of green tobacco leaves. “This time last year, I would have been busy in other people’s fields working for food,” he recalls.

Kachigamba’s change of fortune came last year when Concern, through its partner organization, Hope for the Heart, encouraged poor farmers in the area to join the newly established Chipeni irrigation club.

Kachigamba making ridges in his irrigated field. Photo: Malawi, Concern Worldwide

Concern supported club members by providing an easy to use treadle pump and spraying machine. Irrigation equipment is loaned out to each of the members for a day so that all members are given the opportunity to improve their crop production. As Kachigamba explains, the initiative has led to a dramatic transformation in the lives of club members.

“In the past I used to face food problems. I had nowhere to get food and had to make my family work cultivating other people’s fields so that we could survive. We could buy only barely enough to feed ourselves and my children would go to school on an empty stomach,” he recalls.

Now, Kachigamba has a different story to tell: “Being a member of the club has helped me a lot. I have harvested seven bags of maize from my field this year and I still have time to tend my tobacco crop. My children are performing better in class because they are no longer hungry.”

Chitukula is predominantly a tobacco farming zone. Farmers such as Kachigamba rely on the cash crop for their livelihood. From the proceeds, they send their children to school, buy food and use the rest of the income to invest in their crops for the next season. In the past, unreliable rains have resulted in wilted crops and chronic hunger for many families.

“Irrigation farming has shielded us from the perennial hunger that we experience every year. Even if the rains fail this year, at least we have something to keep us going from our harvest,” says Kachigamba’s wife, Regina.

Regina says the availability of food in her household has made them concentrate on their farm: “Both our tobacco and maize crops are doing much better because we now have enough time to prepare our fields. Currently we are pruning the first leaves of our tobacco plant which we will sell to vendors. We will use the money to supplement our food stocks and pay school fees for our children.”

Isaac Ndevuzamwayi is another beneficiary of the irrigation scheme. Isaac says he sold his produce as green maize and made MK15, 000 – nearly $100.

“Vendors from town came to purchase my maize in bulk. From the sales, I managed to buy food for my family, seeds and fertilizer for my field and saved a little for the future,” said Ndevuzamwayi.

Like Kachigamba, Ndevuzamwayi’s household has always experienced food shortages, forcing him to abandon his livelihood to look for work elsewhere.

“I used to work in other people’s fields but whatever I got could only provide me with a hand-to-mouth existence. At the end of the season I had nothing to show for it,” he said.

Irrigation improvement in Asia

The population boom continues in Asia as one billion more people are expected to be created in the next 40 years. This will mean many more mouths to feed and agricultural experts say that improvements need to be made to irrigation systems through the continent. Depending on rain alone will not be able to grow the amount of food to feed everyone. Crops are too susceptible to damage by either drought or floods. Irrigation systems began to be built on Asia in the 1970s but a renewed push is needed to expand or upgrade existing irrigation.

From the IPS, writer Marwaan Macan-Markar attended an Asian Development Bank meeting that discussed the issue.

"Irrigated agriculture is a more secure platform," says Thierry Facon, senior water management officer at the Asia-Pacific office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "Rain-fed agriculture is less productive."

This distinction has become more stark against the backdrop of uncertain weather patterns arising from climate change. "Farmers are reluctant to invest in good seeds and fertiliser in rain-fed areas because of climate change uncertainties," Facon explained to IPS. "It is in this area that you find most of the rural poor and vulnerable populations."

Studies by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) mirror this reality. "Approximately 27 million hectares of rain-fed rice are frequently affected by drought," states a report by one of the region’s premier rice research bodies based in Los Banos, in the Philippines. "The rain-fed rice environments experience multiple abiotic stresses and are characterised by high levels of uncertainty, particularly with regard to the timing, duration and intensity of rainfall."

But if the irrigation systems built and managed by governments are to help better rice and wheat yields, these largely ageing water distribution networks must be upgraded to meet farmers’ new demands, according to a clutch of new studies released recently at a meeting in Manila hosted by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB).
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Many of the current irrigation systems were built when the Green Revolution began to sweep across the continent in the 1960s. This radical push to increase rice production through the introduction of high-yielding rice varieties in the paddy fields across Asia has been credited for helping slash the numbers living in hunger.

According to the U.N. food agency, the Green Revolution accounted for a 300 percent increase in rice production in the past four decades, helping to "reduce the proportion of hunger from 34 percent in 1970 to 16 percent in 2006."

And now, as the region faces the challenge of having to feed 1.5 billion new mouths in the next four decades, attention is once again turning to what the irrigation systems can deliver. "Asia’s population will reach five billion people by 2050 and feeding 1.5 billion additional people will require irrigation systems that generate more value per drop of water," states ‘Growing More Food with Less Water: How Can Revitalising Asia’s Irrigation Help?’ one of the studies released at the AsDB meeting that drew some 600 policymakers.

"Asia accounts for 70 percent of the world’s irrigated land and is home to some of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes," states the Manila-based Bank. "But most systems were built before the 1970s, function poorly and often fail to match the needs of farmers."

Boosting irrigation in Nigeria

Irrigation for agriculture will receive a boost in Nigeria thanks to more government funding. A politician of Nigeria made the announcement of the new funding during the weekend.

From the Vanguard, we read more details of the irrigation projects going on for the Hadejia-jama'are River Basin.

Managing Director, Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin Authority (HJRBDA), Alhaji Sanusi Abdullahi, said yesterday that N4.35 billion had been made available to the authority to boost food security.

Abdullahi who made this known in Abuja said the basin had three major projects to boost food supply.

“We have Kano River Irrigation project which has a near completion aspect of about 7,500 hectares gross and we have another project at Hadejia valley.

“And we have another one which is Kano State project, but is being supported by the Federal Government. We call it Bagwi Irrigation project and Watari Dam with about 800 hectares.

“We hope to complete the projects by the end of next year because we have to stop construction during the rainy season and resume work during the dry season,” he added.

He noted that the current economic recession had also affected the progress of some of the activities of the basin, adding that adequate funding would guarantee the acquisition of the potential of the basin.