National 3 (Spotlight Weekly)

Small Is Beautiful

Micro-irrigation can help in the poverty alleviation considerably if authorities come up with proper policy and back it up with effective implementation

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

Poverty alleviation is a buzzword that is in vogue among development partners in Nepal. Many suggestions have been prescribed to overcome this problem. But the fact remains that as Nepal is an overwhelmingly agricultural country, without uplifting the farmers, poverty cannot be alleviated.

Different reports have already proved that incidents of poverty are higher in areas that suffer from water scarcity. In a country like Nepal where over 80 percent of people are involved in agriculture for their livelihood, the proper irrigation can increase the yield by many folds thereby helping in the financial situation of poverty-stricken farmers.

A water-harvesting tank : Useful tool

At a time when various reasons including resource-constraint prevent the country from investing heavily on mega irrigation projects, it would be proper to concentrate on cost-effective micro-irrigation programs, according to experts.

With the objective of promoting the micro-irrigation as a tool for poverty alleviation, Support Activities for Poor Producers of Nepal (SAPPROS-Nepal) organized a workshop titled “The Potential and Prospects of Micro-irrigation in Nepal” last week where different experts highlighted on the need to go ahead with the micro-irrigation programs.

“It is found that there is co-relation between the incidents of poverty and scarcity or inaccessibility of water. Even the land endowment would not bring more income if there is no water for cultivation. As such, the irrigation facilities can contribute towards national and household food security, better facilities and opportunities to the land owners,” said Prachanda Man Pradhan, an irrigation expert and chairman of Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems Promotion Trust. He presented a paper on the role of micro-irrigation in the poverty alleviation.

Experts have said that although around Rs 70 billion have been invested in the irrigation sector in the last 50 years, it could not bring any change in agriculture as well as food security scenario. “Rather the country transformed from the net food exporting country to the net food importing one,” said Pradhan.

In the last 25 years there has been irrigation development in 7,00,457 hectares of land. “About 30 percent of the total cultivated area of 2.6 million hectares is reported to be under irrigated agriculture. About 75 percent of the irrigation is constructed and managed by the farmers themselves. All round the year irrigation is available to only about 30 percent of the irrigated areas,” said Devendra Bilas Bajracharya, an expert at the SAPPROS, who also presented a paper on the use of micro irrigation for marginal farmers.

“Since Nepal’s poor mostly dwell in the sloppy hills cultivating small parcels under the mercy of rain-god, their lands are in no way suitable for surface flood irrigation even if there were surface sources available. For them, massive government investment on irrigation is of no use. Due to extreme poverty and food insufficiency, they are becoming easy prey of the insurgents. Therefore, they need appropriate micro-irrigation technologies,” said Bajracharya. Dr. Govinda Koirala, another expert, also presented a paper on the institutional arrangements for the development of micro irrigation in the country, at the workshop.

Currently, agriculture occupies 40 percent of the total GDP of the country. “The growth in agriculture sector is vital for overall economic growth of the country,” said Dr. Shankar Sharma, vice chairman of the Nepal Planning Commission (NPC). The commission plans to irrigate 200,000 hectares of land in the Tenth Plan period.

SAPPROS has been involved in providing micro irrigation in different districts. It’s micro irrigation programs, including hundreds of water harvesting tanks, have benefited 3094 households and irrigated 303 hectares of land. “We have been working at grass-root level together with villagers,” said Narendra K.C, a director at the SAPPROS. Among different methods of micro-irrigation systems, Water Harvest Tank, drip, cycle pump and other technologies are more popular among farmers as they are appropriate sized, cost-effective, sustainable and manageable by the farmers themselves. The SAPPROS has also successfully made use of the Hybrid system whereupon the drinking water as well as water for irrigation is supplied together.

“We believe that micro irrigation can become a key tool in the fight against poverty in our country. Our organization has been working in this direction on its own for the last many years,” said Shri Krishna Upadhyaya, executive chairman of the SAPPROS.

The experts, however, regretted the lack of national level policy on developing micro irrigation in the country and called for the concerned authorities to look into this aspect.