Martin Hvidt
Odense University, Denmark
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Twenty-five years have elapsed since the High Dam was finished, and in this period the major improvements in the irrigation system has been in the main system and by installing adequate drains. Until recently no attempts has been made to change the way the farmers use water in their fields.
This paper deals with the first attempts to redirect the way water use takes place at farm level, towards higher efficiencies in the Egyptian agriculture.
Currently 3 major problems are faced by the agricultural sector.
It is estimated that the yields of some crops could be increased by at least one third on the average, while the yields of selected crops like maize, sorghum and groundnuts could be doubled (Stoner, 1994: 87). Actual crop-yield evaluations from specific development projects confirm these estimates (ILRI, 1988: 62).
Among the most fundamental reasons for public investments in irrigation systems is that good control over the water by the farmers is a prerequisite for the adoption of new agricultural technologies, such as fertilizer, pesticides, and high-yielding grain varieties (Barker, 1978: 142; Haider, 1987: 1; Levine, 1986: 3; Richards and Waterbury, 1991: 163). These improved technologies are primarily bio-chemical (in contrast to mechanical), and presuppose adequate and predictable water supplies. [1]
Even though the Nile is under full control today, and the irrigation system in general performs satisfactorily - when water is plentiful (ISPAN, 1992: 10-11) - research projects and studies provide ample evidence of the urgent need to improve farmer water control in Egypt (see e.g. Abu-Zeid and Rady, 1992: 96; EWUP, 1984: 11-26; IIP, 1990b: 9; Mehanna, Huntington, and Antonius, 1984: 139; World Bank, 1993: 26) .
These studies document both that control over irrigation water and its distribution within the system, that is, along branch canals and mesqas, is inadequate to provide the farmers with adequate, reliable and fair water distribution. This mean that the farmers are not inclined to invest time and effort in improved farming practices, and certainly not in the adoption of new agricultural technologies.
Furthermore, hydropolitical issues threaten to limit the amount of water available to Egypt. For example, the two upstream states, Ethiopia and Sudan, have at present neither the political stability nor the money to engage in large irrigation development projects. If their condition were to change, however, Egypt would be left with a reduced portion of the Nile flow.
In 1979 the Minister of Irrigation wrote that "Egyptian agriculture is considered to be one of the most consumptive of irrigation water in the world. This high consumption is not due to reasons related to soil, but is mainly related to the wasteful use of irrigation water" (Samaha, 1979: 253) .
Actual measurements point out that farmers generally apply 50 to 250 percent more water than is needed by the crops and for leaching requirements (IIP, 1993b: 10) . One reason for this vast over-irrigation is the lack of water control, because with lack of water control "... the general tendency of farmers is to irrigate too soon and apply too much water" (Clemmens, 1987: 60) .
At present, Egyptian agriculture consumes about 84 percent of the water used in Egypt (Abu-Zeid and Rady, 1992: 94) . This means that it is in this sector that the greatest potential for applying water-conserving measures is found (Stoner, 1990: 89). Even relatively small changes in the on-farm water use on individual farms will result in sizable savings on a national scale. Estimates of potential annual water savings of 15 percent are mentioned (World Bank, 1993: 25) .
To achieve the full benefits of the free market, the liberalized cropping patterns require corresponding changes in the way irrigation water is delivered and allocated to farmers for meeting the real crop water needs. Water deliveries in the present irrigation system, therefore, must be changed to a demand system in order to accommodate the different needs of individual crops.
A second implication of this liberalization process is that the former procedure of the Government, to extract money from agriculture to improve and maintain the irrigation system, must be modified. The state simply cannot alone pay for the improvements, operations and maintenance of the irrigation system. Mechanisms has to be set up, that make it economical feasibile for the farmers to invest there own money and effort in the improvment of the tertiary canals.
The IIP project is introducing a broad range of improvements at the institutional level, at the macro-system level and at the micro-system level.
The IIP pproject encompasses both technical and social changes in the irrigation works managed by farmers. The fundamental change introduced by IIP though is to delegate all decisions concerning water usage and cropping patterns to the farmers, that is - to groups of farmers - the so-called Water users Associations or WUAs. This is in sharp contrast to the rigid state control over both these factors which has been operated prior to the IIP project.
A WUA is defined as
... a private organization owned, controlled and operated by member users for their benefits in improving water delivery, water use and other organizational efforts related to water for increasing their production possibilities (IIP, 1990a: 3) .The IIP is a state-of-the-art project, especially in terms of the approach followed in involving the end users - the farmers - through Water User Associations (WUAs) in the design, implementation and maintenance of the physical structures and the allocation and distribution of water by WUAs themselves.
More specifically, the WUAs are responsible for the operation and maintenance of the improved mesqas; the operation of the "single point lift" pumping plant, scheduling irrigations among water users, collection of pumping charges, hiring pump operators, maintaining the mesqa and pumps and handling conflict among the users.
But what do we understand by the term technology?
In the literature the term technology is used in a range of different meanings. Frequently as a synonynoumous with "technique". In the American tradition the word technology however is mostly used in the sense of the immaterial production factor "knowledge".
I have choosen to use a broader concept of technology developed by The Aalborg School of International Technology Studies, Denmark. It encompasses 4 interrelated elements: Technique, knowledge, organization, and product.
Whereas the three first categories are straight forward to comprehend, let us look closer at "product". Product denotes the end result of the work process encompassing the combination of technique, knowledge, and organization, whether it be commodities or services. Product is included in the definition of technology because the specific choice of the combination of the elements of technology is aimed at satisfying specific needs.
The point is that the four dimensions of technology are interlinked in such a way that a change in just one of them necissitates qualitatively changes in the other three dimensions. This mean, that if a technolgy transfer process is going to succeed, then it is not enough to bring in some new equipment, changens in knowlege and organization must take place along with it.
The figure provides a brief overview of the changes implied by the IIP technological package. It is important to notice that most of the changes at farm level is the intangible kind.
The IIP technological package is, as I see, it a tool to specialize the Egyptian agriculture.
Data was collected through structured interviews undertaken by local interviewers. A total of 137 WUA council members were interviewed, each located on different field turnouts (marwas). All the selected respondents had land on mesqas that was improved by IIP and had been in operation for more than 2 months.
The farmer interviews were supplemented by interviews with key informants in the areas, a review of the WUAs financial status and by physical measurements of i.e. land savings.
Because the farmers have ultimate authority either to accept or reject the new technology, simply because the pay for it, it is of utmost interest to analyze whether or not the IIP pagckage in fact, from a farmer point of view, is consideret attractive.
Let me present some findings.
I analyse water control on three dimensions, adequacy, reliability and fairness.
Let me show just two of the tables:
Adequacy:
and fairness:
The data in table 7 show that at mesqas with non-operational continuous flow in the branch canals the estimated adequacy of the water supply has increased in relation to the before situation.
However with continuous flow in operation the increase is found to be much greater as compared to the situation before, and greater in relation to the after situation without continuous flow.
While this is not conclusive evidence, it is a strong indicator that improvement of the mesqa system in itself has an effect on the adequacy situation. This finding is a result of that the IIP package has improved the flexibility of the water delivery systems and, thus, has put the farmers in far a better position to utilize the unstable water supply dominating the command areas before the implementation of continuous flow.
Table 8 shows that for mesqas at branch canals with non-operational continuous flow; respondents with strong WUAs reports far less deviations than respondents with weak organizations.
On the other hand, for farmers at branch canals with continuous flow fully operational, no differences is reported in relation to organizational strength.
This indicates that when continuous flow is fully operational, the strength of the WUAs does not influence water control. However when the branch canal water supply is not adequate, reliable and fair, the ability of the farmers to plan water usage is dependent of the strength of the organizations.
At first sight this is a discouraging finding. If the irrigation agency is capable of supplying continuous flow, there seems to be little reason for the farmers and the IAS staff to invest their time and effort in creating strong WUAs. However, taking yet a closer look at the available information, three points indicate that this is not the case, and in fact, that organizational strength is of utmost importance for improving and sustaining water control.
2. Implementation of continuous flow has shown itself to be very complicated both technically, organizationally (and politically) for the irrigation agency (IIP, 1993a; IIP, 1993b), and thus, organizations are needed in order to counteract the start up problems at each mesqa.
3. Egypt is facing a situation of water scarcity (Abu-Zeid, 1992: 14), it is increasingly difficult for the irrigation people to allocate extra volumes of water which has been found necessary to maintain the continuous flow (IIP, 1993b: 20ff). Thus, instability of water supplies are predominant even after a number of years, and thus, there is a need for organizations.
These points highlights that the more the cropping patterns are diversified and the more successful the IIP improvements becomes in specializing the irrigation functions, and the scarcer the water resources, the greater the dependency of strong and well functioning WUAs will become in securing farmer water control.
Essentially this means that the more succesful the IIP technology becomes, the more indispensable the need for strong and viable WUAs to manage the water deliveries.
Two questions are asked:
Does the IIP technology decrease irrigation cost?
Does the IIP technology
increase Irriation benefits?
Different pieces of evidence has been collected: Let me say that I am using estimates for the increase in income. It takes more than two years to reach the full benefit of the technology.
Let me just show a couple of them,
It is seen that there are differences in the cost of pumping between the three types of pumping.
Cost of pumping one's own pump does only include fuel and oil, recurrent expences.
NB: The cost of the rented pump is thought to be close to the true value. That is the way it always is.
Remember that WUA pump includes payback of pump loan, salary for pump operater and guard, fuel, oil and saving of money in a reserve fund that makes it possible to rent another pump it the current one fails and replace the pump when it is warn out.
It is likely that when fuel prices go up the advantages will be greater.
This figure does not only include the time when the pump is actually operating, but also the transport time back and forth to the village, connecting the intake pipe etc. 2 hours 40 min. Account for that.
In total 10 irrigations is performed pr year (cotton 12)
Farmers express great satisfaction with the time saved.
Approximately half of the sample farmer own pumps or part in pumps. A great concern for the farmers in the beginning of the project was what they should do with the investment they have in their pumps.
As seen by the black columns very few of the owners have sold their pumps. The grey columns show the oldest mesqa improvements. A larger precentage has sold the pumps.
This is the stronges indicator that the farmers have confidence in the new technology.
What we don't know is the income from pumping.
Much less private investment in pumps, half of the sample farmers owned pumps. They have payed between 650 LE and 8,000 LE for them each. Average value around 2,000 LE.
1. Farmer water control is vastly improved;
Abu-Zeid, M. A. and M. A. Rady (1992): "Water Resources Management and Policies in Egypt" (G. L. Moigne, S. Barghouti, G. Geder, L. Garbus and M. Xie (ed.): Country Experiences with Water Resources Management. Economic, Institutional, Technological and Environmental Issues. World Bank Technical Paper Number 175 (World Bank, Washington, D.C) p. 93-101).
Barker, Randolph (1978): "Barriers to Efficient Capital Investment in Agriculture" (T. W. Schultz (ed.): Distortions of agricultural incentives (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind.) p. 140-160).
Bos, Eduard, My T. Vu, Ann Levin and Rodolfo A. Bulatao (1992): World Population Projections 1992-1993 Edition. Estimates and Projections with Related Demographic Statistics (Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank, Baltimore).
Clemmens, Albert J. (1987): Arranged Delivery Schedules. (D. Zimbelman (ed.) Proceedings of conference: Planning, Operation, Rehabilitation and Automation of Irrigation Water Delivery Systems, Irrig. and Drainage Div. (ASCE) Symposium held in Portland, Oregon, 1987 (ASCE, New York) p. 57-67).
EWUP (1984): Improving Egypt's irrigation system in the old lands. Findings of the Egypt Water Use and Management Project, Final Report (Cairo, Egypt).
Haider, Mohammed (1987): International Conference on Irrigation System Rehabilitation and Betterment. (M. Haider (ed.) Proceedings of conference: International Conference on Irrigation System Rehabilitation and Betterment, Volume 1: Proceedings, Leesburg, Virginia, October 27-31, 1986 (Water Management Synthesis II Project, Colorado State University, Fort Collins) p.
Hvidt, Martin (1994): Water, Technology and Development: A farm-level analysis of current efforts to improve the performance of the Egyptian irrigation system Ph.D Dissertation.
IIP (1990a): Irrigation Advisory Service Strategy for Building Strong and Sustainable Water User Associations Discussion Paper #1. By M. Lowdermilk IAS Main office staff (Cairo, Egypt).
IIP (1990b): Socio Economic study of Egypt's Irrigation management improvement challenge. Summary Report. Vol. 7. Final Report IIP Socio-Economic Team (Cairo, Egypt).
IIP (1993a): Technical and Organizational Change in Irrigation Rehabilitation Programs: The Case of Continuous flow Water Devivery in Irrigation Improvement Project (Egypt) By R. Oad (Cairo, Land).
IIP (1993b): Water Management Monitoring and Evaluation Program By R. Oad and S. Mohamed (Cario, Egypt).
ILRI (1988): Annual report 1988 (International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement, Wageningen).
ISPAN (1992): Irrigation Water Cost Recovery in Egypt. Determination of Irrigation Water Costs (vol 1-2) By Irrigation Support Project for Asia and the Near East. Report prepared for USAID/Arab Republic of Egypt and The Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources. Arab Republic of Egypt (Arlington, Virginia, USA).
Levine, Gilbert (1986): The Challenge of Rehabilitation and Betterment. (D. A. Fowles (ed.) Proceedings of conference: International Conference on Irrigation System Rehabilitation and Betterment. Volume 2: Papers, Leesburg, Virginia, October 27-31, 1986 (Water Management Synthesis II Project, Colorado State University) p. 1-13).
Mehanna, Sohair, Richard Huntington and Rachad Antonius (1984): Irrigation and Society in Rural Egypt Cairo Papers in Social Science, vol. 7, monograph 4 (The American University in Cairo, Cairo).
Richards, Alan and John Waterbury (1991): A Political Economy of the Middle East. State, Class, and Economic Development (American University Press, Cario).
Samaha, M. Abdel Hady (1979): "The Egyptian Master Water Plan" (Water Supply & Management, Vol. 3, p. 251-266.
Stoner, Roy (1994): "Future Irrigation Planning in Egypt" (P. P. Howell and J. A. Allan (ed.): The Nile, sharing a scarce resurce. A historical and technical review of water management and of economic and legal issues(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) p. 195-204).
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2. The figures used are from (World Bank, 1994: Table 1 and 25). For a further breakdown of these figures see (Bos, et al.: 210ff). The total size of the current population and its growth rate are subject to debated. United Nations figures for example hold that the population in 1994 was approximately 62 millions, and project that the population by 2015 will reach 87 million, and by 2050 will reach 117 million. The current growth rate is estimated to be 2.2 percent (United Nations, 1994).[*]
© The author and Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Archived 24.9.95