Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Sostenibilidad

Just another web-blogs Sites site

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Agriculture and Food Security
    • Climate change
    • Ecosystems and Biodiversity
    • Environmental and Social Safeguards
    • Infrastructure and Sustainable Landscapes
    • Institutionality
    • Responsible Production and Consumption
  • Authors
  • English
    • Español

Community irrigation with a watershed approach: a technological leap forward for sustainable agriculture in Bolivia

April 20, 2018 por Lina Salazar - Cesar Augusto Lopez Leave a Comment


Irrigation plays a vital role in the productivity of the agricultural sector and food security stability. Access to irrigation increases agricultural production and productivity, allowing farmers to expand the number of planting and harvesting cycles on the same plot, within the same agricultural year. This increase in agricultural production translates into greater food availability at the local and/or national level. Likewise, increased food production translates into higher income to farmers, either through sales or home-consumption1, generating greater food access among rural households.

Irrigation is also a “climate-smart agriculture” practice. Specifically, reducing farmers’ dependence on precipitation cycles for agricultural production diminishes vulnerability to climate change. This affects food production stability. In general, irrigation is a tool that increases rural households’ food security through greater availability, access, and stability of food.

Recognizing the benefits of irrigation, since the mid-90s, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has supported the efforts of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to expand the area under irrigation and to improve the efficiency and sustainability of water resources. This is accomplished through public investments for the construction and rehabilitation of community irrigation systems. An example of this effort is the national irrigation program with a watershed approach (PRONAREC).

The program aims at boosting income and productivity of small farmers by increasing the area with irrigation and improving the efficiency in the use of water. The program has three components:

1. Construction and rehabilitation of community-based irrigation systems: development of minor irrigation works such as small dams and irrigation channels.
2. Technical assistance: training farmers on agricultural practices, access to markets, adequate use of natural resources, as well as the management and governance of community irrigation systems.
3. Watershed management and governance: training producers in the efficient use of water resources and implementing actions aimed at the conservation of water resources (e.g., reforestation).

As part of PRONAREC’s execution, a rigorous impact evaluation has been designed and implemented, focused on identifying the causal effects of the program by comparing a group of beneficiaries with a control group. Although program beneficiaries are still in the learning process, since the evaluation was conducted approximately two agricultural years under fully functional irrigation systems, the results demonstrate the effectiveness of PRONAREC on four main fronts: technological change, marketing, income, and management/governance of the irrigation system.

Technological change: program beneficiaries have a higher probability of adopting on-farm irrigation (24%), increased the area equipped with irrigation (35-45%), and augmented irrigation investments in their own plots, particularly on equipment and maintenance (160%). In addition, they have a higher probability of using improved or certified seeds (80-90%), and agricultural machinery (7-19%), including tractors (11-20%). In general, we see that the technological change at the community-level, driven by investments in public irrigation infrastructure, has triggered a private technological change among producers. This result is important as private on-farm investments were not financed by the program.

Marketing: the results from the evaluation indicate that the program has strengthened farmers’ access to markets (20-30%). The agricultural transformation process was reinforced by the technical assistance provided to program beneficiaries on marketing practices; in order to strengthen farmers’ links to markets.

Income: the intervention had a significant impact on the value of agricultural production of beneficiary farmers, which increased between US $ 1,250 to US $ 1,550, representing an increase of 60-70%. In addition, a boost on total household income is also observed (35-45%), which is mainly derived from agricultural sales.

Management and Governance: there is evidence that PRONAREC has improved the management and governance of community irrigation systems. First, we find an increase in the probability that water users’ associations are formalized (12-15%) as well as in the participation of farmers in the associations (5%). Second, we see an improvement in the structure and organization of irrigation systems governed by water users’ associations. Specifically, there is a higher likelihood that beneficiary associations count with water management statues and regulations (50%), norms for irrigation shifts (57%), and technical manuals for the operation and maintenance of the systems (42%).

This evaluation’s key learning point is that financing community irrigation infrastructure and technical assistance can trigger a process of modernization and technological change. These results suggest that community irrigation systems can produce a virtuous cycle to improve agricultural productivity, food security, and management/governance of natural resources.

Download the latest publication:

Impact evaluation (available in Spanish and English)
Infographics (available in Spanish and English)


Filed Under: Agriculture and Food Security

Lina Salazar

Lina Salazar is a senior economist for the Environment, Rural Development and Disaster Risk Management Division of the Inter-American Development Bank. She has a PhD in Economics from the American University in Washington DC, with specialization on rural development, gender economics and project impact evaluation. Over the past six years she has lead the design and implementation of several impact evaluations of rural development programs with the purpose to identify effective strategies to improve agricultural productivity, income and food security of small land holder producers in the Latin American and the Caribbean region (i.e. Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Mexico). Her research also expands to topics related with disaster risk management and gender issues. Currently her work at the IBD entails leading the design of agricultural projects (i.e. Haiti, Bolivia, Peru) and the impact evaluation agenda for interventions in the agricultural sector. Previously, Ms. Salazar has worked in the Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the FAO in Rome, Italy as well as in the Impact Enhancement Division of the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru.

Cesar Augusto Lopez

César es investigador de la División de Medio Ambiente, Desarrollo Rural y Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres del Banco de Desarrollo desde 2015. Provee apoyo técnico especializado en las diferentes etapas y actividades relacionadas con el diseño e implementación de evaluaciones de impacto de proyectos agrícolas que fomentan el cambio tecnológico y el aumento en la productividad. César posee una licenciatura en Economía de la Universidad de California en Berkeley y esta particularmente interesado en la investigación relacionada con la economía del desarrollo, econométrica aplicada y las redes sociales.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

SEARCH

Sustainability

This blog is a space to reflect about the challenges, opportunities and the progress made by Latin American and Caribbean countries on the path towards the region’s sustainable development.

SIMILAR POSTS

  • Improving Food Security through Women’s Empowerment
  • Technologies transfer…a tool towards food security
  • Yes, we can!… Measure Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture!
  • World Water Day 2019: let’s not leave anyone behind
  • BOLIVIA – Pilot Program for Climate Resilience Improvements in water supply infrastructure and irrigation systems will increase climate resilience in urban and rural areas in Bolivia

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

Blog posts written by Bank employees:

Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


For blogs written by external parties:

For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



Privacy Policy

Derechos de autor © 2023 · Magazine Pro en Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

Aviso Legal

Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

facebook
twitter
youtube
This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser.
To learn more about cookies, click here
x
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

SAVE & ACCEPT