The difficulty of transferring management of small irrigated areas to farmers in Algeria: the case of Ladrat

Abstract

One of the key issues for the success of irrigation management transfer is farmers' acceptance of the new water user associations and their participation in them. This is especially the case in countries with strong State intervention in the agricultural sector. In the late 1990s, the Algerian government transferred the management of small- and medium-scale irrigation schemes to water user associations. This study analyzes the functioning and governance of the water user association that manages the Ladrat irrigation scheme, situated in the Medea region in Algeria. The association's executive committee is continuing the same bureaucratic practices applied by the public administration. The limited capacity of the association to act results in particular in a high rate of non-payment of irrigation fees. Conflicts are not managed within the association, which often asks the State to intervene. Farmers are therefore reluctant to join the association. Despite these shortcomings, the majority of farmers support the idea of collective management. What they criticize are the bureaucratic procedures of the association and farmers' limited role in its governance. Therefore, farmers' reluctance to join the water user associations created by the State does not thus necessarily express refusal of the idea of collective irrigation management.