THE PLACE OF SUPPLEMENTARY IRRIGATION: AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABLE RURAL TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: A REVIEW

Abstract

Farmer productivity has been experiencing some decline for some decades now. There is some evidence that internal push factors such as conflicts, policy failure have affected productivity, Climate change impacts have contributed greatly to the decline in yield making rural farmers the most affected. Climate Smart Agriculture however presents nouvelle community-based approaches for farmers to adapt and mitigate these impacts of climate change on their production whiles improving their incomes. This review paper models a supplementary irrigation system as a solution to the crop water stress caused by climate change. The system provided the required water to the crops resulting in optimal development and improved yields of the rice farm it was modelled for. The paper used data from Tungan Macheri community in Kebbi state, Nigeria and climate data of 1987 to model the supplementary irrigation system for a 0.5 hector rice farm. CLIMWAT and CROPWAT tools from FAO were used to obtain some climatic parameters in relation to farming, generate the various developmental stages of the rice crop and their corresponding crop factor (kc) values. The Blaney-Criddle approach was used to calculate the water requirements of the crop. A 13.41m3 surface reservoir will be sufficient to provide the right amount of water to the 0.5 hector rice farm for optimum productivity. This reservoir will be supplied from rainfall runoff from a watershed area of 14,184.41m2.