Irrigation: a pathway out of rural poverty

In the coming decades the impact of climate change in agriculture is going to be huge.  Agriculture will have to cope with extremely hot summer, erratic rainfall pattern, long dry spell and drought, extremely cold winter, flood and landslide.  Against these adverse conditions the agriculture production is estimated to drop by around 30%.

The increasing demand for food has to come from shrinking area under agriculture as the growing urban centers, industries, infrastructures and other development paraphernalia are being developed on agriculture land. 

The agriculture development has to seek new generation of technologies, farming systems and resource management practices.  Technologies for both climate change adaptation and mitigation have to be found.  Indeed the future Green Revolution would be possible with the success in climate change adaptation and mitigation.  The relevant technologies have to be made accessible to farmers at highest scale. 

The relevant technologies should be made affordable to common farmers through capital investment support and subsidy in interest rates or tax exemption measures.  Subsidy in agriculture is inevitable and it should be seen as a tool to ensure national security and sustained economic growth.  Even within the framework of WTO the provision for  subsidy in agriculture is there under its Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). 

The priority has to be given to have climate smart agriculture that produces more food with increased resource use efficiency, lesser emission of green house gases and environmental degradation.  

From climate change perspective, the first thing first would be to begin with water, which is a critical factor for agriculture development. 

Due to climate change the sustained flow of water from springs, streams and rivers is shrinking.  The growing urban centers and industries are demanding huge amount of water, while hydro-power establishments need sustained flow of rivers for which they are designed.  

Most countries of the world use 30-70% fresh water resource for irrigation depending upon the availability of water resource and level of agriculture development.  Bhutan would be using below the minimum of the world average scale but there lies potential for agriculture development consuming more water than ever thought. 

So far irrigation has been synonymous to constructing open canals for conveying water for growing rice in summer.  The opportunity and benefit of adopting micro-irrigation technology for irrigating fruit trees, vegetables, and high value crops on slopping land is yet to be realized. 

The strategic areas of investment for irrigation development are: (1) Existing irrigation canal infrastructure which need lesser investment for renovation, (2) Construction of new irrigation canal network in rainfed rice growing areas which constitutes over 65% of the total rice growing areas, and (3) Promotion of micro-irrigation technology inevitable for horticulture development. 

The generic policy and investment strategy for irrigation needs to be dis-aggregated as no one-size-fits-all.  The two irrigation systems: the canal irrigation at communal level and micro-irrigation at individual farmer level require entirely different approaches.  Balancing the investment between the two different systems needs to be considered in the light of opportunity and risk. 

The investment on micro-irrigation needs to be considered in the light of climate change and declining production and export of horticultural products.  Definitely, the determining factor would be as how much increase in rice production vis-a-vis how much increase in production of fruits and vegetables we want.

While the open channel irrigation infrastructure benefits a large number of beneficiaries, the micro-irrigation is not necessarily collective.  It is generally established at the individual farm level specifically for horticultural crops.  It does not necessarily require water conveyance channel, and does not require large flow at intake point.  It could be sustained effectively by rainwater harvesting at individual household level. 

Micro-irrigation saves water up to 70% and increases production to over 100%. 

Of the prominent technologies of micro-irrigation, the Drip Irrigation System (DIS) has been most popular.  With it the fertigation -applying plant nutrients along with irrigation water, is possible.  Applying right amount of plant nutrients and plant protection substances directly with irrigation water to the root zones of the plants reduces the cost of production and maximizes the profit.

While huge public investment is being made on construction of irrigation channels, policy and investment strategy have to be found for micro irrigation and balance the investment between the two. 

Definitely the micro-irrigation schemes justifies different institutional arrangements and support mechanisms. 

With Drip Irrigation System the country like Israel is growing best fruits, vegetables and flowers in deserts where there is no soil.  The same could be done anywhere with right policies and investment strategy.  It is impending to consider a separate program and promote in a mission approach with clear support policy and investment strategy as it is being done in India. 

While irrigation canals are built, renovated, and improved at public expense, the micro-irrigation scheme with all its benefits should not be left at bay and not letting farmers to benefit. 

As elsewhere, the public support to micro-irrigation scheme could be best provided in the mode of credit-linked back-end support which brings all stakeholders together.

The policy imperative for initiating and promoting micro-irrigation scheme, would be to provide support on capital investment and interest on credit.