What’s Next
When designed and implemented properly, micro-irrigation technology increases farmers incomes, reduces workload, and reduces overall water use. Providing training and adapting technology also has to go hand-in-hand with water governance, finance options, governmental policy changes, and public-private partnerships. The potential for the transformative effect of micro-irrigation technology is bright but will require a concerted investment in time, money, and education to scale effectively.
Toward Global Scale
A Call to Action for the feminization of agriculture mechanization
Women still lack access to agricultural machinery, despite their increasing role in agricultural productivity due to male out-migration.
Work with governments to address subsidy and tax policy
Once government officials become aware of the opportunities that market building provides, they start to be advocates within the system to encourage changes to subsidy policies and taxation. There is no such thing as a truly free market. Even in places where no government intervention (e.g., regulations, tariffs) exists, market actors may be penalized because of differences in bargaining power or ...
Fostering businesses for long-term sustainability
Establishing a social enterprise that fills a missing market gap means that needs can be met now as well as for future generations. Social enterprise has proven itself as a viable solution to filling the supply gap for a market where existing actors have failed to meet social needs. But starting a social enterprise and funding it until it can establish its profitability remains a serious hurdle fo...
Smallholders need reasonable loans to start the journey towards profitability
Emerging non-profit microcredit institutions, which leverage donor funds to offset loan servicing expenses, can open the world of finance to smallholder farmers. The hard reality of subsistence farming is that such farmers don’t have any ability to try new things without some form of assistance. These farmers simply lack the funds to invest in anything, even a miracle technology guaranteed to earn...
The Drip+ Alliance: Scaling up micro-irrigation for smallholders requires a coalition of interested parties
Drip irrigation can’t stand on its own. Neither should its supporters. Micro-irrigation technology has the potential to increase smallholder incomes. For it to be successful, it can’t be implemented alone, but needs to be considered as an integrated package that looks at the farmers’ complete situations: their access to water, what crops they plan to grow, how they plan to fertilize, pest manageme...
Where do we go from here?
Strategies to scale micro-irrigation based on the lessons learned from the last decade. By some estimates, there are nearly 600 million people in poverty who rely on their own agriculture for income. Charity can’t overcome this challenge due to the sheer numbers involved. Instead, sustainable implementations that can grow and scale are needed. This was the challenge that the Swiss Agency for Devel...