The International Water Management Institute(IWMI) gave farmers across Nigeria and Africa a reason to believe in a brighter prosperous future. This sums up the impact of IWMI at the 6th African Regional Conference On Irrigation And Drainage In Abuja.
The Director General of IWMI, Mark Smith stressed the need for farmers to be linked to the provision of information and technology, access to equipment, and financing that is needed to help them make the investments that they need. He also wants them provided with irrigation facilities that would increase productivity while guaranteeing markets for their produce.
Another key thing emphasised is the need for flood water management for irrigation, he literally told farmers and governments across Africa, to turn what has become a perennial disaster for many countries into a helpful instrument for irrigation to increase yield.
He said there are different means farmers can adopt to effectively manage flood water, some of them include putting in place small-scale structures to capture rainwater, also the flood water can be maximised to recharge the groundwater, which can later be drawn for irrigation.
On government side the DG disclosed that another aspect is the development of large-scale infrastructure for water storage adding that there is also the wetlands’ natural storage of water, which can be released during the year through natural process.
IWMI Senior Researcher – Water and Climate Change Management and the Deputy Country Representative – Ghana, Sander Zwart was asked what is the key work, the organisation has done that can be regarded as a game changer and he said:
IWMI does a lot of work, however he picked digital innovation, as the future. He said reaching millions of farmers with this solutions is the big challenge, maybe extension services and other projects can do that.
Citing their work in Ghana as example he explained how they work with private sector partners, to co-design and co-develop digital innovations that help them get access to farmers and provide them with the right solutions.
One of innovations that stood out for him is the IRRILiine service with Farmerline in Ghana, it is a digital platform that farmers can call or help-desk and they are guided to a process and we give them advice on what kind of irrigation technology they should invest in, to irrigate their farm, this solution he said is primarily targeting the small holder farmers.
To ensure the farmers succeed they don’t focus only on technology rather, they also provide irrigation advice, whether advice and the agronomic inputs that they can use and linking them to input to them to output markers. So that it is a full package that the farmer receive, he said that, when done that way risk to investment are reduced to a minimum.
He reiterated that it is not a single technology that you need, but it should actually be a package and digital solutions that IWMI is working on, co-designing, co-developing with private sector partners. I think that his the way forward for sustainable irrigation.
Dr. Moctar Dembele a researcher on special ideology with International Water Management Institute (IWMI) relayed his experience when they visited a farm settlement along Keffi – Abuja road, he said:
We had this youth professional forum two days before the conference, IWMI took the opportunity to make a presentation on smart irrigation technology; the role of Ai and machine learning.
During the training we presented a tool called ‘the vegetable irrigation for climate resilience toolkit‘ to train the young professional on how to map land stability for irrigation and agriculture to grow vegetable but not only land stability but also water sustainability, using available water in a sustainable manner, also looking at identifying suitable technology for irrigation .
This kind of training is something that IMWI does regularly when we attend conferences across Africa and World wide, to make sure young professionals have tool on ground to support young farmers.
It was clear to participants that, it is the firm belief of iWMI that through proper strategy, climate change impact can be minimised, flood water is can essential tool to support food production and farmers if guided properly on how to use available tools, yield will increase and there’ll bye food security.
The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) was established in 1984 as the International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI). The name was changed in1997 to reflect an expanded vision of the role irrigation plays in the global hydrologic cycle, food security, and the environment.
