Small-Scale Irrigation and Food Production in Ethiopia: A Review

Authors

This paper ammine the development and constraints and constraints

of small-scale in Ethiopia, and its role in food production,

particularly since the 1984/85 famine. Although

in Ethiopia probably the Axum

unimportant in the highlands, and is poremial Tole in

productiOIl may be greatest at lower elevations. The govemmenlsponsored

small-scale programme,

increased production in some

plagued by ciyil war, the yi/lagizatiOIl

insecure land tenure,

above all, lack of peasant interest in the llo'ver.r;rr.!enl-S,DOJ'ISC)rea

irrigated agriculture programme. A crop census by the

Agriculture in 1986/87 showed that the crops most

under imgation in J,020 peasant associafiom and

cooperatives in four of the COUI/try's thirteen administrative

were vegetabfes; the staples maize, potatoes and

cash crops coffee and chal (Catha and sugar cane. Marked

local and regional variations in pal/ems were associated

with market forces and prevailing systems. There is some

evidence thal food staples are now more than in the

past and that the stimulant chat has been introduced as a cash crop

mlo new areas. However, in order for SI!,J1mcar1l1Y

peasants to lise imgalion and to increase

imperative that recellt chlInges

development of economically,

sound irr:galion programmes, and initiative of

peasants, who have become despondent under current govemmelllal

difficulties.