Africa-Press – Tanzania. CURRENTLY, the country’s private is not adequately involved in irrigation development.
Private sector involvement covers not only the investment and management of the commercial farms and estates, but also includes the provision of support services and facilities.
In recent years the contribution of the private sector which is engaged in service provision for irrigation equipment particularly water pumps, drip and sprinkler equipment, has had significant impact to the sector.
Service provision for construction and consultancy remains below expectations.
Although the private sector is increasingly becoming stronger and important in turning the development into successful business, it is confronted with inadequate incentive schemes such as assurance of land ownership, water availability and accessibility and leveraging mechanism for investment.
In order to harness the irrigation potential in Tanzania, the government formulated the National Irrigation Policy in 2010.
It aims at providing direction for the implementation of irrigation interventions to ensure optimal availability of land and water resources for agricultural production and productivity.
The low percentage of the developed irrigation area stems from the challenges facing the irrigation sector that include low investment by the public and private sector, ineffective management of irrigation schemes, low production and productivity, weak research and technology promotion.
In this context, the National Irrigation Act of 2013 was enacted to curb the above mentioned challenges.
The Act, among other issues, provided for establishment of the National Irrigation Commission; to provide for the development, operation and maintenance of irrigation and drainage systems; to provide for effective implementation of the National Irrigation Policy, the National Irrigation Development Strategy (2016) and to provide for other related matters.
To date, Tanzania has a total irrigation development potential of 29.4 million ha, of which 2.3 million ha are classified as high potential; 4.8 million ha as medium potential; and 22.3 million ha as low potential.
However, out of this potential area only 468,338 hectares equivalent to 1.6 per cent of the area under irrigation has been developed and contributes about 24 per cent of the national food requirement as of June 2017.
The current area under irrigation comprises of 2,418 irrigation schemes distributed across the country of which 124 are fully operational and provided with some basic irrigation infrastructures while the remaining 2,294 comprises incomplete and deteriorated irrigation infrastructures including traditional irrigation schemes characterised with temporary irrigation infrastructures and hence low water and crop productivity.
According to the Five-Year Development Plan irrigation is required to increase to 1,000,000 hectares by year 2025 through government and Development Partners support.
It is for this fact that we need active participation of the private sector to enable the country reap the benefits of irrigation farming.
