Uptake and profitability of small-scale irrigation in the Sahel: insights from the literature and survey data

Amy Faye and Joachim von Braun

Agricultural Water Management, 2025, vol. 313, issue C

Abstract: This paper analyses the uptake, profitability, and challenges of small-scale irrigation (SSI) in the Sahel, focusing on data from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal. Unlike previous research on irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), it differentiates between farmer-led SSI (FSSI) and non-farmer-led SSI (NFSSI) and analyses labour profitability of SSI. Inverse probability weighing is used to balance covariates between compared groups of small-scale irrigators. The results show low SSI adoption rates in the Sahel, ranging from 4 % in Burkina Faso and Niger to 10 % in Senegal and 12 % in Mali. Profitability analysis shows that SSI is a more profitable land use activity compared to rainfed cropping. However, the two approaches complement each other as SSI mainly occurs during the dry season in the Sahel. FSSI is more profitable than NFSSI except in Mali where NFSSI has historically been a pathway to irrigation development through public irrigation schemes targeting rice cultivation. However, FSSI has higher variable costs. Results further show that for SSI, irrigated high-value crops such as vegetables are more profitable and require less land than the traditionally promoted rice. Finally, this study emphasizes that investments in irrigation should consider the unique characteristics and variability within SSI, distinguishing between farmer-led and non-farmer-led approaches, as well as the differences between SSI and non-SSI, composed of larger-scale irrigation and non-irrigation.

Keywords: Farmer-led irrigation; Irrigation technology; Labour productivity; Irrigation expansion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425001830
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:313:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425001830

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109469

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().