Module 9 - Niger: Tailoring Irrigation Technology to Users’ Needs

Benefits and Impacts

The project has strongly supported the national agricultural strategy to increase productivity. Significant gains made in Niger’s irrigation sector included:

• ANPIP grew gradually from a small group of 10 people to 19 decentralized committees constituting 13,500 farmers.
  
  
• An information campaign about the new national irrigation policy (through printed booklets, a prospectus, and radio and TV commercials) reached 2,000 representatives of farmers, and administration and traditional authorities. Following this campaign, over 1,500 economic interest groups were established with membership of over 15,000 farmers.
  
  
• The training component included 382 training sessions covering 4,150 participants, and it was complemented by radio, television, newspaper, a printed handbook, and demonstrations in the local market.
  
  
• The project introduced the treadle pump and promoted the tubular borehole, submerged pumps, motor pumps, and irrigation via buried pipes as components of comprehensive on-farm water systems. Farmers pay the full cost of the technologies.
  
  
• Cultivated area increased by about 63 percent, and yields of major crops increased by 27 to 32 percent (onion and sweet pepper, respectively).

Lessons Learned and Issues for Wider Applicability

• The shift of project administration from government to a private agency (ANPIP) enabled a private sector management style, and the legal and administrative flexibility to execute the project.
  
  
• Promotion of private ownership of treadle pumps and improved irrigation technologies, with incentives for good operation and maintenance, was undertaken. In relying on genuine demand in deciding the location of local pump manufacture, the project increased the chances that the nascent treadle pump market would be sustained in the long run.
  
  
• Giving farmers a menu of technology options allowed them to choose the level of technology and investment appropriate to their farming conditions.
  
  
• Making available simple, locally made, and affordable technologies, and training local craftspeople to manufacture and repair treadle pumps, kept the supply chain between farmer and manufacturer as short as possible, ensuring that pump parts and repair expertise would be locally available. Adaptations to irrigation technologies reduced their prices.
  
  
• Linking these basic technical changes with other changes, such as a sound irrigation policy, available credit, land tenure security procedures, and effective monitoring of project success, facilitated adoption and contributed to the program’s success.