Farming Reboot could Lay Seeds for Prosperity in Poor and Food Insecure Regions

Agriculture experts from The Australian National University (ANU) have teamed up with government bodies and NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa to improve irrigation schemes and boost crop production.
The researchers' work is improving food security, reducing water waste and lifting people out of poverty.

"This simple reboot of irrigation schemes made up of small farms could help stamp out poverty in farming communities around the world," Professor Jamie Pittock, from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, said.

The 'transforming irrigation in southern Africa' project is empowering farmers by giving them the knowledge and tools needed to consistently grow high-yielding and profitable crops while minimizing water usage. The research is published in Nature Food.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in infrastructure to support irrigation systems and grow crops that return a profit, but unfortunately crop yields in Africa are very low and often not much better than the dry land farms around them," Professor Pittock said.

"Africa has one of the largest populations living in rural areas that depend on agriculture for their livelihoods but sadly irrigation schemes have traditionally been somewhat of a failed sector across the continent.

"Our interventions have been directed at rebooting these failed irrigation schemes so that they do produce food reliably, they are profitable, and they bring people out of poverty."

This system reboot involves providing farmers with simple-to-use tools—developed by CSIRO—to help them measure whether the soil in their fields is wet enough and has sufficient nutrients to grow a high-yielding crop. This empowers the farmers to make their own decisions rather than relying on government help.

This new intervention has proven to be more successful than past government-led methods used to grow crops in which farmers were advised to apply specific amounts of fertilizer to grow crops such as maze or corn.

"What we found was governments weren't helping farmers do a simple cost and profit loss assessment of the crops they were growing, so we have provided the farmers with basic field books to help them calculate what it'll cost to grow a crop and the necessary labor required and figure out how much income they'll get from growing that crop," Professor Pittock said.

Professor Pittock says these simple but effective interventions have proven "revolutionary" because farmers are minimizing their water usage.

"Prior to this they were putting too much water on their fields and actually drowning their crops. Knowing how much water they need to grow their crops means the farmers are conserving water and saving up to two days of labor a week, which can instead be spent on other livelihood activities," he said.