ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights irrigation technologies differ greatly in what is expected from farmers and in the demands they impose on the economic system. Surface irrigation based on canals and flood basins will require far more modification of the physical environment than, say, a pressurized system employing portable piping and overhead sprinklers. Several features of indigenous African socioeconomic organization complicate farmers' response to modern irrigation technologies. The choice of application technology is left to the operator, whose holdings are often extensive and whose farm operations are largely mechanized. The introduction of irrigation means that a labor-intensive crop is superimposed upon a family's activities, without fully displacing existing food production. The things which African men often expect their wives to do within the farming system--selecting seed, transplanting, weeding, bird-scaring and harvesting--are vitally important for the success of irrigated crops. On most "official" matters, outsiders deal with male members of the household even when the issues at stake are central to women's well-being.
