ABSTRACT
The attractiveness of irrigation as a preferred choice for stabilizing food production was especially high after the 72-73 drought. In addition, by the mid-1970s it was clear that major irrigation investments in Asia were beginning to pay off, even generating food surpluses in situations which had been regarded as hopeless only a few years earlier. Cost recovery problems relating to irrigation projects stem, at least in part, from nature of some of economic benefits that such projects provide. Where labor employed in irrigation would have migrated to a location in-country in the absence of the irrigation project, social opportunity cost of that labor is usually assumed to be zero. There is considerable evidence supporting the conclusion that the introduction of irrigation into African production systems in occurred because it is what might be termed a privileged solution. Irrigation projects that involve a significant amount of resettlement pose special problems for financing recurrent costs.
