Farming Systems:

Potential for Added Value:

Improved availability of water for plant growth in the semi-arid areas is but just one solution that needs to be integrated with other productivity-enhancing interventions in a systems approach that includes integrated watershed management, off-farm income generation, better analysis of climate variability, market linkages, and risk insurance mechanisms. Therefore, value will be added if the proposed outputs will be clustered with outputs of:

• R8452/R8215 - Increasing food security and improving livelihoods through the promotion of integrated pest and soil management in lowland maize systems;
• R8182/R8418 - Participatory market chain analysis;
• R8274/8275/8498 - Farmers access to markets;
• R8088 - Improved pro-poor strategies for scaling-up the integrated management of rainwater in semi-arid areas and R8116 - Improving management of CPRs in RWH systems.
• R7304 - Improved management of CPRs;
• R7830 - Participatory irrigation management and participatory technology development;
• Various projects (e.g. R7434, R8269) on variety development and seed management; and
• Some projects (e.g. R7010, R6621) on livestock management.
• R8064 - Raising Irrigation Productivity and Releasing Water for Intersectoral Needs (RIPARWIN), especially the participatory dialogue and decision support tool, called River Basin Game (RBG).

The non-RNRRS outputs recommended for consideration are:

• Smallholder system innovations in integrated watershed management [SSI] being implemented in Tanzania and South Africa.  The main output is an advanced knowledge for improved eco-hydrological management at watershed and basin scale with particular focus on system interactions in smallholder rainfed farming systems upgraded with RWH;
• Outputs from the Comprehensive Assessment (CA) of Water Management in Agriculture [4];
• Outputs from India on integrated watershed management, such as the national manual of watershed management, and the Hariyali [5] guidelines dealing with cost norms for various works in different regions to assist budgeting, funding and execution.

[1] This approach was first described by the Tradition Irrigation Improvement Programme (TIP) assisted by SNV of the Netherlands

[2] Hatibu N. and H.F. Mahoo [eds] (2000). Rainwater Harvesting for Natural Resources Management: A planning guide for Tanzania. Technical handbook No. 22, ISBN 9966-896-52-x, RELMA, Nairobi.

[3] Guidelines for participatory improvements to farmer initiated and managed smallholder irrigation schemes in Tanzania, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, 2004, Dar es Salaam.

[4] www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Assessment/

[5] The  "Hariyali Guideline" is a product of many years of lessons from implementation of IWM in India and was approved by the GoI in 2005 (http://dolr.nic.in/HariyaliGuidelines.htm)

Validation

How the outputs were validated:

The outputs have been validated through studies targeting both the intermediate organisations and user groups. Two were carried just before the project and provided a baseline. These studies included:

• Assessment of the acceptability and sustainability of RWH for paddy and maize production under semi-arid conditions of Dodoma District in Central Tanzania (2000)
• Cost-benefit analysis of RWH techniques for maize and onion production in Same and Mwanga districts (1999)

Three more were conducted after the project ended, as follows:

• Preliminary Economic Analysis of Rainwater Harvesting Systems [6];
• Farmers' Assessment of the RWH Techniques  Njombe District in Southern Tanzania [7]; and
• Detailed Economics Studies [8]

The outputs have also been validated by proxy through practical use. Examples include inclusion into national strategies, District Agricultural Development Strategies, and projects in Tanzania. Many Intermediary organisations like SAIPRO, MIFPIRO, VECO and TIP, and projects such as PADEP and PIDP have invested resources to replicate and put these products into use. Local Government Authorities are using the products to improve content of extension messages as well as capacity building for extension officers. This also included the transfer of outputs to Ethiopia, Rwanda and Nigeria. These countries sent delegations to visit and assess implementation of the outputs in Tanzania, followed by adaptation of the outputs to own countries. The Rwandan Government has hired two senior experts, one from Tanzania (a member of SWMRG) and one from India to facilitate work of Integrated Participatory Watershed Management including RWH systems.

Validation of communication and learning products was implemented while the products were being developed and used, as follows:

(a)      Stage 1: Participatory assessment of needs for information, learning and training, through consultation meetings with stakeholders across all levels of the uptake pathway.

(b)      Stage 2: Participatory design of materials for awareness raising, learning and training through a workshop attended by over 40 participants cutting across institutions, gender and other social groups.

(c)      Stage 3: Testing, evaluation and approval of draft versions of materials by stakeholders.

(d)      Stage 4: Technical review by users, including IWMI who identified that the awareness raising booklets would be useful in South Africa where there were initiatives to assist small holders in areas in a country with limited experience on smallholder farming.

The validation processes reported above involved smallholder farmers across gender (women, men and the youth). All relevant social groups were reached by the capacity building activities and they provided validation feedback. The validation process showed that Improved management of rainwater enabled farmers to cultivate high value cereals (maize and paddy) in areas which are traditionally considered for production of drought tolerant (sorghum and millets) leading to an increase in maize yield by 2.5 t/ha, an increase in GM of $220/ha; an increase in return to labour of $5/person day, and a benefit to cost ratio of 1.55. In one area farmers are storing harvested water in small ponds and scheduling the water applications to grow onions. The result is a high gross margin of US$2,750/ha and a return to labour of over US$13/person day.

Where the Outputs were Validated:

Four countries have been involved in the validation, namely Tanzania (mainly semi-arid production system), Rwanda (hillsides production system), Ethiopia (semi-arid) and Nigeria (High potential). The farming system of focus was generally smallholder rainfed in all cases. Specific locations in Tanzania included:

i)        The semi-arid areas of Central Tanzania particularly Dodoma, Singida, Shinyanga and Mwanza regions, covered by the Participatory Irrigation Development Project (PIDP)(2001-06) which is a development project funded with loan funds from IFAD and implementing the principles of output 1 and 2. Members of R7888 project contributed as consultants to the design of the project as well as in capacity building.

ii)       In Same and Mwanga Districts where four NGOs (MIFIPRO, SAIPRO, TIP and VECO) have been promoting RWH since 2002 following interactions with the R7888 projects.

iii)     In Njombe district, in the Southern Highlands from 2003 -2005.

In Rwanda the main target locations are the Bugesera and Umutara provinces where all social groups from farmers, their support agents, local leaders as well as national politicians are involved. The timing of the validation 2003-05 and the RWH systems were well taken up by the farmers. The farmers' association at Murama is now assisting other such organisations to take up RWH activities in surrounding areas. In Ethiopia the validation was carried out in 2001 through farmers' visits to Tanzania followed by technical design missions to Nazareth supported by RELMA. In Nigeria the validations were carried out under another project commissioned by NRSP in 2004/05.

[6] Senkondo, E.M, A.S.K. Msangi, P. Xavery, E.A.Lazaro and N. Hatibu (2001). Economic Analysis of Rainwater Harvesting Systems in Selected Semi-arid areas of Tanzania. Poster Presentation at the 10th International Conference on Rainwater Catchment Systems, Mannheim Germany, 10 - 14 September 2001

[7] Kapinga, P. H., N. Hatibu, H. F. Mahoo, F. B. Rwehumbiza and M. M. Mkuchu (2003). Assessment of Rainwater Harvesting Techniques for Domestic Uses and Crop Production in the Semi-arid areas of Njombe District.

[8] N. Hatibu, K. Mutabazi, E. M. Senkondo and A. S. K. Msangi (2006). Economics of rainwater harvesting for crop enterprises in semi-arid areas of East Africa. Agricultural Water Management, 80 (2006): 74-86.

Current Situation

Who are the Users?

These Outputs are being used at a national and regional level primarily by bodies responsible for agrochemical management to influence policy, promote and implement plans of action for better agro-chemical management and to influence the public and farmers towards good agricultural practices.

The Regional Plan of Action has been supported with funds from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Chemicals to implement two workshops with the involvement of CARICOM Secretariat. This enabled the group to explore collaboration to implement the Multilateral Environment Agreement. CGPC has been empowered to recommend further policy changes on behalf of the rural poor with whom they work closely. The lessons learnt are being employed by CGPC to seek CARICOM's approval to initiate regional registration. At the last meeting, CGPC continued to implement and promote the strategy and included in its recommendations a new submission to CARICOM Annex I.

The Caribbean Agricultural Research Development Institute (CARDI) has used the outputs in papers presented across the Caribbean to disseminate information on the status and effects of the use of agro-chemicals to regional audiences (Annex II)

Nationally, the Strategy has been employed to guide agrochemical management, and the toolkit used for developing national plans of action. Promotional materials have been used to sensitise people from the general public and consumers, farmers, companies producing and selling agro-chemicals, donor community to managers and policy makers in government.

The Certification of Agricultural Produce project of the Jamaica Agricultural Society and the Bureau of Standards have used the EUREPGAP Standards to develop a national standard on good agricultural practice.

The Strategy's recommendation for public health monitoring is being implemented by the Caribbean Poison Information Network and the hospital surveillance unit with the involvement of pharmacists, ministry of education, toxicologists, medical professionals and the PCA.

Pesticide companies have been involved with the PCA in programmes to restrict sales of certain toxic agrochemicals

Where the outputs have been used:

Regionally throughout the Caribbean by the CGPC, CARICOM Secretariat and by regional bodies such as the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI) and CARDI.

Nationally all CGPC member countries have adopted at least one of the recommendations of the strategy, and through the involvement of CARICOM the influence of CGPC has increased (see under "Scale of current use"). National and regional videos and posters were used during pesticides awareness weeks in 2005 and 2006 within CGPC countries.

Extensive use of the Outputs has occurred in: Jamaica and Belize  which have implemented several recommendations of the strategy (e.g. cost recovery, public health monitoring, national database); Jamaica and St. Lucia are implementing inter ministerial plans of action and utilising promotional material; Montserrat has  harmonised its legislation with Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States; St Kitts and Nevis has reviewed draft legislation and introduced sustainable financing. Dominica has undertaken a public awareness raising campaign; initiated environmental monitoring together with the Environment Division, and  work is in progress to determine pesticide residues on selected produce to include fruits and vegetables, breast milk (human and cow) and meat samples. Antigua has also drafted a new Pesticides and Toxic Chemicals Control Act, trained inspectors and advised distributors on the operation requirements for their premises. Elements of the strategy have also been applied in St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

Scale of Current Use:

Following completion and adoption of the strategy in 2003, and endorsement at CARICOM in 2005, lobbying of national governments continued and all CGPC members have adopted at least one of the recommendations of the strategy within a year of completion of the project.  At the last CGPC meeting PIP expressed willingness to provide assistance for a legal review and drafting of legislation to support harmonised registration which has already started with the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and extended to Barbados. The toolkit has been used to develop National Plans of Action for POPs.  CARICOM endorsement of the Strategy has strengthened the CGPC resulting in increased membership since 2005.

Nationally, implementation of the strategy has spread from two countries in 2003 to eight (St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Dominica, Antigua, Belise, Jamaica and St. Lucia) in 2006.  Jamaica implemented four inter-ministerial national plans of action almost immediately. In St Lucia policy endorsement of the strategy resulted in the proposal for appointment of a full time registrar and staff for the PCB, and in St Kitts, addressing the sustainable financing element of the strategy, import licence fees were introduced. Other CARICOM countries like Dominica and Belize became parties to the Rotterdam Convention and initiated public health monitoring. Belize also employs full time staff, cost recovery, and trains pesticides users. Antigua has done public health and environmental monitoring work primarily in the area of POPs

Data collection on poisonings has increased and hot spots where poisoning is highest are being targeted for intervention. 

Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success:

The development and ownership of the Strategy by members of the regional CGPC has been central to the success of its implementation. Sharing of information among CGPC members at annual meetings has contributed to capacity building. The development of a regional plan of action by CGPC has provided a framework to take forward the Strategy and attract donor funds. While CGPC represented only 65% of the CARICOM, the regional platform that brings ministerial attention to the recommendations of the strategy ensures that agrochemical policies are coordinated and there is support for its adoption. CARICOM support was achieved in 2005 (see 10). Support and promotion by recognised regional bodies like CARDI and IICA have also been influential.

External funding from UNEP Chemicals has enabled capacity building workshops  to develop project proposals for implementing the strategy. Two consultation workshops to develop national plans of action for ratifying and implementing Rotterdam Convention were held in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica September 2005 and May 2006 respectively. Suriname, Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago participated. Familiarity with the toolkit made it possible to complete these NPA's.

Implementation of the strategy at the national level requires an integrated approach amongst existing Ministerial structures. This has required the development of new structures implemented through inter-ministerial national plans of action. UNEP Chemicals also encourages synergies among multinational environment agreements and has supported NPAs on chemicals management involving inter-ministerial coordination. Under that initiative a website for integrated chemicals management was developed (www.chemicalsafety.gov.jm)

 Sensitisation of farmers, consumers and the general public has been important in achieving success. In this respect lessons learned from the NRSP projects on the development and implementation of Communication Plans have been important. Communications specialists have been important in developing and disseminating messages. Although a range of media have been employed, but face to face meetings and focus working groups have been particularly.

At a national level uptake of the strategy has been most successful in those locations where a dedicated full time staff exists. The level of training of people in the relevant agro-chemical bodies in the Caribbean is generally high but in those locations where no dedicated full time staff exists, competing duties limit uptake.

Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways

Promotion of Outputs:

Aspects of this question have already been covered above with respect to the two countries, Tanzania and Rwanda where there is active promotion. By inclusion of these products in policy and programme documents in Tanzania, promotion is taking place by utilization of the concepts inherent in the outputs. Main promoters are relevant programmes at national, district and NGOs levels. The scale of current promotion can be measured by the number districts where there is active use of some or all outputs. Out of about 60 districts in Tanzania which are categorized to have semi-arid climate, 13 (Maswa, Same, Mwanga, Mbeya, Njombe, Hai, Rombo, Handeni, Singida, Kwimba, Shinyanga, Bariadi and Misungwi) have specific programmes dealing with RWH through which some of the outputs are being promoted.

In Rwanda Rwanda promotion is mainly by ISAR and it is taking place at high rate. As an RWH is being included in the plans for integrated management of watersheds across many sites that have been established within a period of 12 months. These watersheds are located in in Gitarama, Cyabayaga, Gasharo, Ruhengeri, Kibungo didtricts.

Potential Barriers Preventing Adoption of Outputs:

There are two categories of barriers slowing down the adoption of the outputs in particular, and RWH in general. The first category concerns knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of the key stakeholders along the uptake pathway. The second problem is related to resources economics and governance. With respect to KAP, and despite the many years of work on RWH, there are still gaps to fill in Tanzania on each aspect.

i)        On knowledge, there is still a problem that agricultural water management (AWM) is still taken to mean irrigation as defined by Civil Engineers, who continue to dominate the relevant departments in government and NGOs. So although accepted at policy level, RWH is not being implemented adequately because of a major shortage of experts who are broad minded about AWM.

ii)       On attitudes, a good measure of success has been achieved as testified by the change of policy with increased support for RWH. However, attitudes are still fixed on large irrigation schemes for national pride.

iii)     With practices, the problem on integrating RWH with infrastructure drainage, as the infrastructure, agriculture, and water departments are continuing with old practices and design manuals which do not facilitate integration.

With respect to resource economics and governance the barriers include:

i)        Inadequate understanding of how and when runoff is a resource, how much is available, and this availability is affected by different plans for land, agriculture, infrastructure, water resources, and environmental management.

ii)       Poor understanding of the economics of RWH as well as poor market incentives.

iii)     Runoff is a common pool resource, and governance to ensure equitable inclusion of poor target groups in its use and benefits, remains a challenge.

How to Overcome Barriers to Adoption of Outputs:

Further work is required to develop a community of practices for RWH in target countries. The CoP should involve a trans-sector network linking key actors in sectors such as land, water, infrastructure, agriculture, environment and agricultural markets. All the outreach by R7888 described previously has been too much focused on the agricultural sector. More importantly there is need for action to build a broad based platform that will foster innovation, joint planning and adaptive management of runoff resources.

To achieve the above there is a need to expand the awareness raising, professional development and joint learning programme to reach a critical mass of actors in each of the important sectors. There is a need for a vigorous campaign to influence the educational and professional training systems to mainstream training in RWH as well as AWM in its broad sense so that the new crop of scientists and other professionals will be well versed in integrated AWM approaches.  This will require re-tailoring of the existing communication, knowledge sharing and learning products. Further to these we need to promote platforms that allow for continuous and inclusive dialogue and planning.

There is an urgent need for procedures for evaluating the runoff resource status and assessing the potential for implementing successful and profitable RWH interventions for a given area. This procedure would use remotely sensed data, and participatory GIS (to include data on rainfall, land and soils characteristics, civil works on drainage, and economic, social and environmental issues). This should put emphasis on the economics of RWH under different enterprises and conditions of market access. The ultimate aim should be to ensure that local resource users/managers make better choices.

Lessons Learned: 

The bottom line in the adoption of production-enhancing outputs is that they must lead to increased income and reduction of risk. This requires technical soundness of the output itself, knowledge and understanding by users of the output and its limitations, good support in terms of policy, technical and financial services, and an economic environment that ensures access of products to markets.

Farmers and their support agents are very much motivated by strong learning alliances which deliberately bring together researchers, government planners, and policy makers to share in the technical risks associated with adoption of new technologies and practices. Such alliances should support the whole process from identification, design, implementation and evaluation of performance of new outputs. This way the researchers and other technical partners underwrite the technical risks.

All the critical players in the uptake pathway should be well targeted and facilitated to play their roles. In many cases policy is the most critical entry point followed by adequate institutional support at all levels. This requires a robust plan for ensuring that all institutions and organizations with key roles in supporting the uptake, are knowledgeable and supportive of the research output being promoted. Where the output influences policies and strategies, then potential for adoption is tremendously increased.

The economic environment is perhaps in the final analysis the most important factor as it determines whether adoption will lead to profitability and income generation for the end-users. Therefore, trade and markets play a key role in driving wide-scale adoption and use of productivity-enhancing outputs. This can not be achieved without strong collaboration of sectors as well as private-public partnerships.

Impacts On Poverty

Poverty Impact Studies:

i)        The detailed economics studies [11], conducted under project R8116 were perhaps the only direct studies targeting the impact of the outputs of R7888.

ii)       The others are impacts studies for one major rainwater harvesting project in Tanzania - the PIDP [12] which have used some of the outputs.

How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups):

We must state here that empirical evidence that clearly attribute the use of these outputs to poverty reduction impacts is weak. However, the detailed economic studies showed that there were impressive returns to land and labour as a result of adopting RWH. The overall per hectare returns to land from paddy increased progressively from micro-catchment RWH (US $ 701.1), macro-catchment RWH (US$ 746.4) and macro-catchment RWH with road drainage (US$ 879.7) before declining to US$ 779.7 in the case of micro/macro-catchment with storage pond. The returns to labour were 8.7, 9.3, 11.0 and 9.7 US$ per person-day for micro, macro, macro linked to road drainage and micro/macro with storage pond respectively during an above-average season. The impressive performance under RWH integrated with drainage systems suggests that these outputs are contributing to poverty reduction.  For example returns to land were more than doubled under RWH.

The following positive impacts on livelihoods have been recorded since 2001:

i)        On human capital - the outputs have lead to increased knowledge on RWH for stakeholders all the way from policy makers to farmers. Although a critical mass has not been attained, but the national expertise on RWH has been vastly improved. More importantly, a momentum has been created for further and continuous building of human capital.

ii)       On social capital - by its nature implementation of RWH leads to the building of strong watershed networks improving social capital. The specific impact on social capital has been the increase of number of savings and credit groups as well as water users association. Most have helped to empower women and youths to take part and influence decisions on water allocation, use and management in the target areas.

iii)    On natural capital - Adoption of RWH has improved the extent to which land is conserved against erosion through the construction of in-situ and majaluba systems. This has certainly improved the quality of natural capital. For example in Maswa District alone, an extra 13,961 ha are estimated to have been treated this way since 2001.  RWH has also increased the availability of water for different uses. However, in this case it has sometimes led to reduction of water availability downstream leading to conflicts over water. For example during the River Basin Game Workshop conducted in September 2005 in Makanya sub-catchment, Same District, participants observed that increased use of RWH technologies in the up-stream and mid-stream villages (Vudee, Chome, Mwembe, Bangalala, Tae etc.) has led to reduced water availability in the downstream village of Makanya. They thus proposed the establishment of a sub-catchment committee to oversee water allocation throughout the sub-catchment.

iv)   On physical capital - There has been a direct increase in structures for control and storage of runoff. For example, there are over 50 privately-owned charco dams in Makanya village, Same District. Some water tanks have also been constructed by livestock keepers in Makanya village to provide water for domestic uses. Under the support of IFAD/PIDP 52 schemes to harvest water for supplementary irrigation were constructed in Shinyanga, Mwanza, Dodoma, Singida and Manyara regions increasing benefits to more smallholder farmers. This led to expansion of area under RWH by 13,961 ha in the five regions, hence increasing production and ultimately improving food security. Other benefits include the construction of improved houses, buy bicycles, radio sets and agricultural implements and equipments such as oxen drawn ploughs, treadle pumps and wheel barrows. For example, assessment done in four villages in Tanzania attributed 100% increase in the number of houses improved from thatched room to corrugated iron roofs, to adoption of RWH.In Rwanda during 2005, seven small holder ponds were constructed in a small watershed. The water made available by these RWH systems was used for various uses e.g. drinking water for animals, irrigation of vegetable crops, sorghum, construction of bricks, household use. Prior to these RWH the farmers had to walk 2 km for getting water from a spring.

v)     On financial capital - Adoption of RWH technologies has led to reduced risks of crop failure and yield reductions thereby increasing agricultural productivity, food security and household incomes. Formation of 14 Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOS) in the RWH schemes in Central, Lake and Rift Valley zones under PIDP support is an indication of increased income from increased productivity. Increased incomes have enabled people to pay school fees for their children, access better health facilities.

Despite these recorded successes from the monitoring reports, a more systematic impact assessment for the project is already initiated after completion of the project to document relative benefits by different farmer categories.

[11] N. Hatibu, K. Mutabazi, E. M. Senkondo and A. S. K. Msangi (2006). Economics of rainwater harvesting for crop enterprises in semi-arid areas of East Africa. Agricultural Water Management, 80 (2006): 74-86.

[12] United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) (2005). Participatory Irrigation Development Project (PIDP). Project Supervision Summary. United Nations Office for Project Services - Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESA-RO), Nairobi, Kenya.

Environmental Impact

Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits: -  

The outputs proposed are designed to influence policies, strategies and practices for optimal and profitable use of available rain water in areas with scarce water resources.

The main outcomes are to conserve water and dispose runoff water safely leading to reduction erosion, soil nutrient losses and flooding of downstream areas. Of course the use of these outputs may lead to substantial change in the runoff patterns and water stored in the profile, but this will be mainly lead to reduction of losses.

The enhanced productivity of food crop enterprises will improve income earning capacity of the small holder farmer which may lead to greater diversification of the systems, with positive impact on the environmental in general. Improved productivity may also lead to easing of the pressure on land and thereby result in reduction of the conversion of land for agriculture from other uses.

Adverse Environmental Impacts:

Adverse environmental impacts related to the use of the outputs include:

• Excessive use of water by upstream farmers through RWH could lead to reduced availability of water to downstream farmers and livestock keepers.
• Reduced flooding of lowland areas may affect farmers who depend on floods to grow paddy.
• Drying of rivers and streams in downstream reaches as a result of over-abstraction or over-exploitation of water through RWH, may lead to serious negative effects on natural ecosystems.
• Dissolved nutrients and pesticide residues may pollute the ground water.

There is therefore a need for watershed scale planning and implementation in a way that is acceptable to upstream and downstream users to prevent the occurrence of conflicts in water sharing/access.

Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters:

Dry land farming systems are challenging and are depended upon by some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities.  They manage and largely rely upon rain-fed agriculture and pastoral systems for their livelihoods and are the custodians of the natural resource base upon which such enterprises depend. The outputs proposed here are designed to directly deal with the variability of rainfall amounts and distribution, which is a major outcome of climate change. Therefore, this outputs where used lead to an increase of the capacity of poor people to cope with the effects of climate change, reduce the risks of natural disasters such as droughts and floods and increase their resilience to climatic shocks.

Annex

Introduction

Rainfed agriculture is the dominant form of agriculture in the world and in the temperate regions it generates very high yields. This is also true in tropical regions, particularly in the sub-humid and humid zones, where agricultural yields in commercial rainfed agriculture exceed 5-6 t/ha. However, in the dry sub-humid and semi-arid regions yields remain very low, between 0.5 - 2 t/ha. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where more than 95% of agriculture is rainfed, average grain yields are only about 1 t/ha. There are many causes for the low performance of rainfed agriculture in semi-arid areas but the most critical is the variability in the availability of soil-moisture for crop use. It is well known that in typical farms in the semi-arid areas, especially when only the hand hoe is used for tillage, only a small fraction of the rain falling on the field reaches and remains in the soil long enough to be useful to crops while up to 70 percent can be lost as un-productive evapo-transpiration and runoff. So it is often argued that poor crop yields and crop failures are not so much the result of low rainfall but of too much wastage of valuable rainwater. Interestingly, no one doubts the critical importance of rainfall but few recognizes the importance of runoff. It is often seen as the cause of soil erosion and so as a hazard rather than a useful resource.

Therefore, Project R7888 was designed to assess whether better management of rainwater can help to improve soil-moisture status and thus reduce the negative consequences of droughts and dry spells in semi-arid regions? Given the importance of managing runoff, the project focused on the harvesting of runoff to make more of the rainwater available for use by crops. With respect to this, the second question tackled by R7888 was, will rainwater harvesting lead to significant increases in crop yields and farm incomes?

Project's purpose was to  improve productivity of water in rainfed agriculture through accelerated uptake and intensive use of rainwater harvesting. The project worked on three fronts, (i) consolidating the technical knowledge of rainwater harvesting while demonstrating the benefits of this approach to farming, (ii) awareness raising to improve the parception of policy makers with respect to the role of rainwater harvesting, and (iii) providing farmers' support agents with the technical knowledge and the skills they need to put better management of rainwater into practice. These were achieved through the promotion of findings from past research to stakeholders at different levels, from farmers to policy makers. The aim was to increase support for rainwater harvesting, in policy, strategies and programs, so that various stakeholders would take positive steps in the promotion and adoption of RWH systems, especially for agricultural production. These steps would involve the inclusion of RWH in the strategies, programs and funding by the government, district councils and NGOs.

Therefore, communication and knowledge sharing was accorded the highest attention, reaching out to policy makers, farmers' support agents, and farmers themselves. A special issue of the Tanzania Journal of Agricultural Sciences devoted to rainwater harvesting was produced, a planning guide handbook on rainwater harvesting was published and circulated widely beyond Tanzania into the whole of eastern Africa, and training programmes for the extension staff and NGOs who work directly with farmer groups, were designed and implemented. These communication, knowledge sharing and learning products are the major outputs of project R7888 that RIU can scale-up especially to promote rainwater harvesting for agriculture at regional level, as described in this proforma.

However, it must be stated up front that R7888 was built on many years of work on rainwater harvesting in Tanzania which was stated in 1991. This means that the outputs articulated and packaged by R7888 actually came from nearly 10 years of work which had gone on previously under other projects supported by IDRC and DFID. Furthermore, R7888 led to another set of major projects some stil on-going. Therefore, this document should be read together with those already submitted for R8116 and R8088.

List of Abbreviations

Relevant Research Projects, with links to the
Research for Development (R4D) web site
and Technical Reports:

R4D	Project Title	Technical Report
R6621	Strategies for improved soil and water conservation practices in hillside production systems in the Andean valleys of Bolivia.
	Las Leguminosas como coberturas y abonos verdes. Proyecto Laderas
R7010	The production of silage from mixed drought resistant real and legume crops for milk production from cross-bred cows in the semi-arid region of Southern Africa
	Forage Production and Conservation Manual Growing and ensiling annual and perennial forage crops suited to marginal and semi-arid areas of Southern Africa
R7304	Zimbabwe: Micro-catchment management and common property resources
R7434	Innovative methods for rice breeding - combining participatory plant breeding (PPB) with molecular marker techniques
R7830	Integrated management of land and water resources for enhancing productivity in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh
R7888	Promotion of rainwater harvesting systems in Tanzania - Phase 1.
R8064	Raising Irrigation Productivity and Releasing Water for Inter-Sectoral Needs (RIPARWIN)
R8088	Promotion of and support to the use of the Parched Thirst Model V2.1 in East Africa, and development of Version 2.2	A B
R8116	Improving management of common pool resources in rainwater harvesting systems
R8182	Strengthening technical innovation systems in potato-based agriculture in Bolivia: Bolivia Initiative
R8215	Increasing food security and improving livelihoods through the promotion of integrated pest and soil management in lowland maize systems
R8269	Improvement of rainfed cropping systems in the High Barind Tract of Bangladesh
R8274	Improvement of maize marketing through adoption of improved post-harvest technologies and farmer group storage: a case study of Kiboga and Apac districts
R8275	Farmer Organisations for market access
R8418	Promotion and development of the participatory market chain approach (PMCA) in Uganda
R8425	Sustainable impact generation and technology promotion to manage B. tabaci and tomato leaf curl virus disease amongst the poorest South Indian tomato growers. Main Report. Annex 1, Annex 3, Annex 6.
R8498	Analysis of promotion and uptake pathways for CPH research