Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
ACCORDING to official estimates, Zimbabwe has enough water resources to irrigate over 2 million hectares. However, only 216 000 hectares are currently equipped with irrigation infrastructure. Our Senior Staff Writer Farai Mabeza (FM) spoke with the Agriculture ministry’s director for irrigation development, Bezzel Chitsungo, to get insights into the recently established working group and its efforts to meet the government’s targets. Below are excerpts from the interview:
FM: Tell us about the Irrigation Working Group (IWG) and what led to its creation.
BC: IWG is a gathering of stakeholders in the irrigation sector to better coordinate and formulate its activities. It was borne out of a need to optimise the allocation of the key resource constraints in irrigation development: time, money, and information, and ensure that the players in the industry are effectively applying themselves without duplication or repetition of activities and disseminating pertinent information to the sector. IWG brings together government, industry, farmers, academic institutions, NGOs, donors, and banks.
Agriculture ministry’s director for irrigation development, Bezzel Chitsungo
FM: What are the targets of this initiative in terms of both hectarage and financial investments in irrigation, and what are the timelines involved?
BC: The targets of the initiative are firmly embedded in the national targets for irrigation development as set out in the NDS1 plan of 350 000 hectares of irrigated land by 2025, with 195 000 hectares already equipped. The balance will require approximately US$2 billion to equip, with the aim of at least a 20 percent contribution by farmer-led initiatives.
FM: What are farmer-led irrigation schemes?
BC: Farmer-led irrigation schemes (FLID) are areas where the drive and initiative for irrigation development is directed by the farmers as opposed to the traditional approach of public funds and development partners. The kinds of farmers who are involved in farmer-led irrigation are characteristically entrepreneurial and concentrate production for both household consumption and income generation. They are diverse in the size of their farming operations, the type of irrigation technologies employed, as well as the source of water for irrigation.
FM: What challenges are they facing?
BC: The challenges faced by FLID can be placed in a number of categories. The first one is financial. We need a sustainable revolving fund for the financing of capex for small-scale irrigation equipment and business planning advisory support for smallholder irrigation farmers to ensure a business approach and formalised business plans. The second challenge concerns markets. We need acceleration of market aggregation through strengthening market linkages and market research, the establishment of a digital database of farmer and other stakeholder information, e-markets and an access portal linked to the existing platforms. We also have technical challenges. These include spatial mapping of water resource availability, tied to technology-type for abstraction.
We want to strengthen incentives for private sector suppliers to come up with technical solutions that meet the real needs of smallholder irrigation farmers. There is a need to strengthen incubation hubs and fund research facilities to conduct targeted research, testing, and certification of equipment suitable for smallholder irrigation farmers. We have issues around policy and knowledge sharing. We want to strengthen secure access to water and local water management through local coordination, monitoring, adaptive allocation, compliance, and enforcement for both groundwater and surface water. We must develop a programme for capacity building and skills transfer for personnel involved in the technical aspects of smallholder irrigation.
FM: How does this programme fit into the government’s overall agriculture transformation strategy and why irrigation?
BC: Irrigation development is a costly exercise. The government alone faces the daunting task to achieve its targets of a middle economy by 2030. It, therefore, recognises the potential other partners and farmers themselves can help achieve its targets hence the FLID initiative. Irrigation development assures the basics of food security for the nation are met by guaranteed water supply. Irrigation development also improves auxiliary infrastructure like roads, electricity, renewable sources and markets when initiated.
Once farmers are empowered through a FLID implementation approach they will have the capability to not only sharply increase the area under irrigation, but given the high degree of ownership, also manage the irrigation equipment effectively and sustainably. In this way, irrigation development through the FLID process can improve resilience in the long-term to help address climate change variability and mitigate the negative impacts, increase agricultural productivity and food availability, and increase the cash returns to farmers.
FM: Are you targeting any specific crops under this initiative, and why?
BC: After household food security has been met, the goal is to grow cash crops for increased economic impact, increased expansion of irrigated areas by the farmers, and sustainability.
FM: What is the role of NGOs?
BC: Our development partners can come in and help us catalyse FLID by choosing to take part in the various activities – the creation of a sustainable revolving fund for the financing of capex for small-scale irrigation equipment, and spatial mapping of water resource availability tied to technology type for abstraction. This would be for FLID farmers characterised as subsistence, market gardeners, and small-scale irrigation-enterprise.
NGOs can get involved in market baseline studies and strengthening of the market regulator, irrigation policy finalisation incorporating FLID as a strategy and sector, and improved linkages between innovation hubs, industry research facilities, and farmers to ensure that the farmers’ technical needs are met and addressed accordingly.
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