ABSTRACT

Pockets of indigenous, and often long established, irrigation all over Africa testify to smallholders’ past successes. Irrigation raises agricultural productivity and rural income. However, smallholder irrigation as we think of it now, with designated plots within a system that distributes water under imposed rules and conditions, developed largely in the early 20th century. Administrations usually built the systems, subsidized the running costs and managed the water and farming activity at a detailed level. In Southern Africa particularly, where political objectives dwarfed economic considerations, irrigation costs were typically high relative to returns from irrigated farming.