Irrigation: Smallholder Farmers in Zimbabwe

It has been a couple of days since I made a blogpost, but I am back with new content! Let’s talk about what freshwater in Africa is actually used for, using Zimbabwe as a case study. Linking back to my previous post, Wada et al. (2017) published a study on global water stress. They found that Africa has a total freshwater withdrawal of around 213.2 km³per year. To put this figure into context, North America, for example, was found to have a total of 622.5 km³per year, thus demonstrating the big difference between the two continents. When dividing the withdrawals into specific sectors, it becomes clear that agriculture makes up the largest part (83.1%), followed by domestic use (12.6%) and industrial use (4.3%) (Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Withdrawals per Sector (%)

What falls into all these three sectors is irrigation – a widely used practice to maintain or advance food production. In Sub Saharan Africa [SSA] around 3.7% of land is irrigated, thus already limiting the extent of crop growth for both human- and livestock consumption (FAO, n/d.).In addition to this, nutrient-lacking soils and climatic variations both temporally and spatially make food production a challenge for many citizens, especially those located in poorer rural regions. 

Accurately measuring the amount of irrigated land in SSA has proven to be extremely difficult, and has raised many queries regarding what statistics should be accepted. Reasons for this uncertainty relate to the size of smallholders’ farming land, which is often too small to be captured in remote sensing images. Moreover, it is difficult to gather relevant information about where irrigation water is sourced from (groundwater or surface water) (Frenken, 2005; Giordano, 2006; Siebert et al., 2010; Villholth, 2013). 

Therefore, computations on the amount of irrigated land by groundwater have been subject to counterarguments. Scholars claimed that many previous recordings are underestimated, and have in return argued for new figures (Table 1).

Total irrigated land in Zimbabwe (1000 ha)
Siebertet al., 2010	Villholth, 2013
123.9	180.6

Table 1 – Groundwater irrigation in Zimbabwe, adapted from Villholth, 2013.

Because of variations in climatic conditions, Zimbabwe provides an interesting case study when exploring irrigation. The country has only one rainy season per year, during which most crops like maize, groundnuts and pearl millet can be grown most successfully. Nevertheless, within that season, crop growth is affected by unreliable rainfall and heavily depends on the location of the farm. In fact, only 37% of Zimbabwe has sufficient amounts of rainfall for agriculture – a fraction of all farmers (Makombe et al.,1998).

Smallholders generate a large proportion of Zimbabwe’s food production. They usually farm on no more than 2 ha of land, and widely employ rain-fed agricultural practices However, research increasingly points to the potential of smallholder groundwater irrigation to mitigate impacts of droughts, which could increase food security, augment land productivity, as well as generate employment (Villholth, 2013; Dixon et al., n/d.). For Zimbabwe, irrigation may be important to overcome unreliable rainfall and start growing crops early in the summer, and thus produce greater yields. Mupaso et al.(2013)emphasise the effectiveness of irrigation in Zimbabwe, arguing that agricultural training can lead to other irrigation systems being used, and thus stimulate rural development. 

Figure 2 – Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe (World Vision, 2014)

All in all, introducing poor farmers to irrigation may be the necessary step forward, given that drip irrigation systems or sprinklers can significantly increase soil productivity and improve food security for many. I am uncertain, however, what the future brings. Will SSA follow the path of China’s megafarms? Will smallholder farmers be outpowered by such large cooperations that can ‘grab’ their land for exports? Or will farmers be able to improve their agricultural practices to produce sufficient amounts of food? – All these questions make me curious to further explore the relationship between water and food in this blog.