Water & Food in Africa

I have sadly come to the end of my blogging journey. In this post, I will briefly reflect on what has been covered and future trajectories.   Needless to say, the topic of water and food in Africa is extremely broad. Throughout my blog, I have explored the various ways in which nations across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have sought to improve agricultural productivity and food security using different water management, extraction and distribution techniques.  By focusing on individual nations for each case study and considering their unique situations, I have tried to avoid the all-too-common treatment of Africa as if it were one homogenous nation . Upon reflection, I realise that my earlier posts are largely focused on institutional-level interventions and policies including virtual water trading, integrated water resource management and desalinisation schemes. Whilst these are effective to an extent, they do not always explicitly consider the needs of smallholders. As these far...

  Last week I introduced GWI and the ways in which it could improve Zambia’s agricultural productivity and food security. This post will consider some of GWI’s issues and what this could mean for the future.   Logistical Considerations Over the last two decades, the use of motor pumps for smallholder GWI in particular has increased considerably .   Since the late 1980s, the retail price of 3-5 ho rsepower pumps (as seen in Figure 1 ) has declined to approximately US$200 . This  has made them  more accessible for smallholders  and encouraged a transition from less-effective treadle pumps .  Figure 1   Diagram of a typical portable motor pump used for GWI in Zambia. This has led Colenbrander and van Koppen (2013) to conclude that motor pumps would satisfy  The Zambia Irrigation Policy & Strategy's aim of "alleviat [ing]  p overty and food security" by upgrading existing and creating new public sector, (smallholder) farmer-man...