Increasing our farm yields for fun 

 

Nigeria’s agricultural systems still depend on rain-fed cultivation due to lingering under-investment in the smallholder farming sector. This has tied cropping to our bi-modal rainfall pattern of April to July and August to November. The growing incidence of weather variability, aka, climate change, has also impacted these cycles, making irrigation a much-needed intervention in agriculture.

In my last article (here), I asked the pertinent question, “Where is the impact?” with regards to various intervention programmes currently administered in the sector. That question is important because to attain robust and sustainable growth in our agricultural yields, some of these interventions should be focused on the smallholder farmers’ spectrum of the agricultural sector and should employ a bottom-up approach in engaging with them, especially in the area of climate change.

The Bottom-up Approach is a democratic and consultative style of decision-making in which farmers’ participation is promoted at all levels of engagement. It encourages their tacit involvement, thereby increasing motivation and ownership of collectively agreed decisions. Though this decision-making process can be time-consuming, it is often rewarded by smooth implementation after the decision has been arrived at. This is facilitated by the pedagogical model approach of disseminating vital information promptly and using the farmers’ social network to scale last-mile adoption.

With only two percent of our arable farmlands being irrigated, our agricultural potential is being limited. As Professor Veronica Obatolu, ED, Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Ibadan, Oyo State, pointed out, the low adoption of this irrigation in the southern part of the country is a concern, which could result in a 40 percent yield drop in 2022. Liangzhi You, et al., noted that farmer-led irrigation, which was developed by the bottom-up approach; could transform Nigeria’s agriculture massively. A million hectares of land unlocked with a farmer-led irrigation system will raise income for farmers and agropreneurs in the dry season alone to the tune of US $600 million (2018 estimates).

Professor Mohammed Khalid Othman of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria’s Agricultural Engineering Department, identified three major types of irrigation systems used in Nigerian farming spaces: surface, sprinkler, and deep irrigation systems. The take-home point is that any type of irrigation system ultimately maximizes crop productivity and minimizes water usage and energy costs. As irrigation is the artificial application of water to plants; therefore, its systems should be well-maintained and supervised to supplement natural rainfall.

Irrigated land in Ethiopia increased by nearly 52 percent between 2002 and 2014. In 2015, 858,340 hectares of land were estimated to be fitted with irrigation. Additionally, 1.1 million hectares of land were fitted with farmer-led irrigation systems. This Ethiopia success story should be studied to learn how progress has been made and what should be done in Nigeria.