Abstract
Irrigation practice across the world is vital to successful green revolution all year round to achieving sustainable development goals in food security, socio-economic and rural development. However, irrigation practice in Nigeria has not achieved the set goals despite the huge investment involved. Moreover, the level of investment and abundant water resources ought to have expedited the goals of food self-sufficiency and socio-economic development in the country. This review attempts to uncover the underline issues regarding the irrigation practice in Nigeria through the evaluation of past and present practices, and its future prospects. The review showed that the major persistent issues that have been hindering the performance of irrigation practice to achieving the set goals were inconsistent government policies, lack of political commitment, low awareness and lack of technical know-how among the farmers on irrigation farming system, and untimely financial intervention. In addition, the communication gap between the government and the farmers was responsible for some cases of underutilization and abandonment of large-scale irrigation system. The study concluded that to achieve food security and socio-economic development through irrigation systems practice in Nigeria, there is need to provide proper policy framework, appropriate technology, and farmers’ awareness and their inclusion in the decision making process. Key words: Irrigation practice, Green revolution, socio-economic development.
Highlights
Nigeria is located between Latitudes 4° and 14° N and Longitudes 3° and 15°E on the Gulf of Guinea with a land mass of 923,768 km2, signifying about 14% of the West African landed area (Balarabe et al, 2016)
Since agriculture and irrigation are intertwined, especially in a country like Nigeria where there is a wide spatial-temporal variation of rainfall across the country (Akande et al, 2017; Bibi et al, 2014), every plan towards agricultural development must be extended to irrigation system development. It is on this premise we reviewed the future prospects of irrigation development in Nigeria under the population growth, resources availability, and government policy
This study reviewed the Nigerian irrigation systems development on the basis of historical backgrounds, current conditions of development, challenges, and the future development prospects
Summary
Nigeria is located between Latitudes 4° and 14° N and Longitudes 3° and 15°E on the Gulf of Guinea with a land mass of 923,768 km, signifying about 14% of the West African landed area (Balarabe et al, 2016). Inland valley bottoms were explored and executed in phases, Fadama I, II and III, as National Fadama Development Program by providing financial support to farmers for the procurement of irrigation facilities including boreholes, irrigation pumps, and tube wells in such fadama areas (Takeshima and Yamauchi, 2012, Nkonya et al, 2012) Despite these efforts, with large and small-scale irrigation systems combined, the earlier performance of agricultural production in terms of food production and economic growth has not been matched. Those that manage to participate are not equipped with the requisite knowledge for the operations and maintenance of the facilities This problem is one of the current challenges being faced by the large-scale irrigation scheme in Nigeria. According to Takeshima and Adesugba (2015), the average population growth in Nigeria between 1961 and 2013 was 2.6% with continuous growth in agricultural
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