Smallholder - Irrigation - Markets

Smallholder irrigation technologies can make a difference for the poor
Access to irrigation is a limiting factor to the productivity and profitability of small farms in many parts of the world. Low-cost micro-irrigation and a series of other low-cost technologies related to small-scale irrigation like treadle, rope and similar pumps, small-scale water storage technologies etc. have a good potential to allow a large number of small farm households to escape the most severe poverty. These technologies can enable them e.g. to produce high value cash crops for local and more distant markets, or to produce food during the dry season, and thus to increase household incomes and improve livelihood security. However, smallholders can only exploit the potential that these technologies offer if they have access to the technologies themselves including spare parts, and to adequate means of production, know-how and markets.

More on smallholder irrigation technologies

Making low-cost micro-irrigation widely accessible through market creation
Many development organisations and programmes that work in rural areas distribute useful technologies to poor farming families, free of cost or through credit, and train them in how to use these. However, such a strategy is neither sustainable, nor does it ensure large-scale access of rural people to the technologies, because development organisations generally have limited reach and duration of their programmes. Only technologies that are commonly available in local markets have a real chance of being widely and sustainably accessible to smallholders. This requires an economically viable, profitable supply chain in the private sector, which covers all the steps from raw materials over manufacturing and assembly to distributors and spare part dealers who sell the equipment to the users. For low-cost technologies such supply chains often do not develop by themselves, but their establishment can be fostered through market creation approaches.

More on market creation approaches

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