Increasing the Scope of Irrigation Alone Won’t Solve the Hunger Games in Africa

The potential of irrigation in solving the situation of food insecurity in Africa is widely contested. Close to 40% of the global agricultural production is derived from irrigated land (FAO, 1997). However, this figure in sub-Saharan stands at only 6% (ODI, 2019). There is a need for improvements of irrigation in Africa as food security continues to prevail and will be made worse by increasing occurrence of droughts and heatwaves due to climate change (Froebrich et al., 2020). 

 

Failure of Irrigation in Africa

 

Several irrigation schemes have failed in Africa. For example, irrigation schemes in Lake Chad and the Malawian project known as ‘Office Du Niger’. Research suggests that irrigation schemes only delivered 18% of the irrigated production capacity they originally proposed with some schemes entirely inactive. Irrigation schemes fail in terms of allocation. 70% of water from flood irrigation schemes is wasted with overwatered crops unable to reach full potential and excess fertiliser carried away with runoff and resulting in further depletion of water sources by polluting streams, lakes, and wetlands.

 

Potential for Irrigation in Africa

 

Academics argued that there is significant potential for irrigation to solve the problem of food scarcity in Africa (Darko et al., 2016). But the question I consider here is, does the potential lie in increasing the scope and number of irrigation projects across Africa or rather technological advancement of irrigation?

 

Research suggests the latter in my opinion. As we shall see not all basins are suitable for surface irrigation and improvements in technology can lead to enhanced conveyance and field application efficiency (Alcon, 2009). 

Not all terrain is compatible for sprinkler- or micro-irrigation. Taking the Senegal River basin as an example, only 8% of the basin has soil and terrain suitable for surface irrigation and even the Nile only has surface area of 30% fit for irrigation. By country the figures become much harsher with just 7% of Libya, 7% of Egypt and 3% of Niger with suitable soil (FAO, 1997). The map below shows the total area of soil and terrain suitable for surface irrigation.

Figure 1: Soil and Terrain Suitable for Surface Irrigation

Source: FAO, 1997

Thus, I argue the potential of irrigation in increasing agricultural production and solving food scarcity is a matter of technological advancement rather than scope of adoption of irrigation schemes.

 

This technological advancement may well be just a small piece of plastic invented by an Israeli company, and which will help farmers to use less water. Despite technological advancement including GPS-guided tractors and genetically engineered seedlings, 85% of irrigation is still completed through discharging a cosmic amount of water across surfaces. But N-Drip, a form of microdrip irrigation, is the latest technology that can potentially bear away the limiting factors in Africa’s irrigation system. 

 

N-Drip is a technology that produces higher yields while saving water, without adding energy or needing water filtration through use of existing infrastructure and gravitational force for energy. Below shows a diagram of how the N-Drip technology works.

 

Figure 2: How N-Drip technology works

Source:N-Drip

Trials in Eswatini (Swaziland) drawing water explicitly from a river were carried out. The N-Drip technology used less water but also increased crop yields by 30%. Adoption of this technology in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Niger whose soil and terrain is not suitable for irrigation, as discussed earlier, would transform irrigation. This would work to increase agricultural production, addressing the problem of food scarcity in Africa. This is significant for Malawi with agriculture supporting 85% of the population and contributing 90% to export earnings (Chirwa, 2008; Tchale, 2009). With rapid population growth and climate change the need to revolutionize irrigation in Malawi is increasingly important due to the reliance on the agrarian economy (Nkhoma, 2011;Shah et al, 2002). 

 

It is believed that increasing irrigation across Africa will solve the problem of food scarcity with the ODI estimating that if just 15% of fields in sub-Saharan Africa were irrigated – double the current area – contribution to agricultural production would be immeasurable. However, I have argued in this blog post that it is additionally the technological advancements of irrigation schemes such as the adoption of N-Drip that will increase yields and prove more effective in fighting the Hunger Games in Africa.