Analyzing the contribution of Rwinkwavu marshland irrigation scheme on community livelihood improvement in Kayonza District, Eastern Rwanda
Abstract
Smallholder farmers across the world and particularly in developing countries have been facing a problem of food insecurity and slow rate of livelihoods improvement because of climate-induced droughts and lack of effective use of modern agricultural techniques. Rainfall patterns have become more unpredictable and inconsistent with the traditional farming seasons and practices. Faced with such challenges, together with the rising population growth and its pressure on natural resources as well as strategies to eradicate hunger, many governments adopted irrigation systems and wetlands development for agriculture to improve food security and welfare of farmers and community in general. This study aims to analyse whether and the extent to which the development of Rwinkwavu marshland and introduction of irrigation system for rice growing in the area have been impacting on the community’slivelihoods improvement since the development of the marshland in 2014. Among the methodological approaches and tools used, a comprehensive desk review to explore available related research works in order to trace the gaps, field visit for researcher’sown observation and collection of information on site and available data indifferent institutions, exploration of satellite imagery of the study area and combination of primary and secondary data to allow the comparison of land use and cover changes before and after the marshland development, questionnaire and focused group discussions were used to collect the farmers and community’sview on the role of marsland transformation in livelihoods improvement. In addition, GIS was used to analyse and process spatial data of the land use/cover change of the area while collected data on community’sview were processed in Microsoft Excel and analyzed using SPSS. The findings indicate that the Rwinkwavu marshland reclamation and transformation to modern rice growing area has highly and positively contributed to community livelihoods improvement. It was recommended further researches in other reclaimed areas countrywide in order to allow decision makers to have enough data that help to compare the efforts and investments made in the sector with the impacts on population. Further researches to compare and balance the benefits from transformation made with the benefits from on natural ecosystem services as well as the impacts on natural habitat are also recommended.
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Introduction
Global food security is a worldwide concern and the challenge is how to feed a growing population which currently is estimated at 7 billion and projected to reach 9.2 billion particularly with the projection from 5.8 billion in 2015 to 7.9 billion in less developed regions by the year 2050 [12]. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where most economies are largely agrarian-based, the demand for arable farmlands continues to be a thorny issue for many countries. The scarce arable land faces competition, soils are becoming exhausted and water becoming increasingly scarce, competition for fertile farming lands and limited access to any available farmland for many areas of SSA has led to people invading wetlands and other marginal areas for agricultural and other transforming activities. In this fight for survival, they often engage in unsustainable use of these natural resources, causing degradation and other adverse effects[1].
Due to increasing population growth, poverty reduction, and development efforts, wetlands are increasingly being utilized and transformed for more value addition indifferent parts of the world. Wetland development projects significantly impact on their ecological productivity and economic output and more often than not generate conflicts concerning control of the resources between different users for instance pastoralists and farmers or small-scale farmers and large-scale capitalist farmers [6].
Wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services to society. Despite this, in many parts of the world, wetlands have been degraded or lost, and demand for development, particularly from agriculture is putting pressure on many of those that remain [3]. Achieving environmental sustainability and at same time satisfying the need for increased food production, enhanced economic growth and poverty reduction, is an issue of growing importance the world over [8].Rwinkwavu marshland, the main focus of this study, is a place where most of the above conditions prevail though at a local scale. The area is experiencing population growth, poverty, ecological stress and limited productive resource base. The main natural resource available, the wetland, is increasingly becoming scarce as competition for control and access to, and its utilization increases amongst multiple and contested uses by various stakeholders within the local community [12]; [10]. The latest incidence is the entry of big-scale investment in agricultural activities, following the construction of adam upstream and development of irrigation system to enable rice growing in the area since the year 2014 [2].
It has also been argued that most studies conducted on Rwandan wetlands have laid much emphasis on natural sciences largely on nutrient dynamics, water quality, aquatic ecology and fisheries, hydrology and catchment‟smodelling and vegetation dynamics with very little to do with human welfare and utilization impacts. On the same note these studies have not explored much into details of livelihood improvement for the local communities with respect to wetland utilization, conservation and management [10]; [4]. The assessment of the impact of these activities on the livelihoods of the local community is a case at hand.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the present study has revealed that Rwinkwavu marshland has completely changed in terms of land use and cover as a result of its reclamation and development of irrigation scheme that allowed the shift from traditional practices like multivariate crops cultivation, grazing and exploitation for usual natural ecosystem services to strategic management of the marshland and technology based practices for rice growing. The positive impacts from the marshland‟sreclamation are not only proven by the high production found on stores of farmer‟scooperatives during and after the harvest period, but also by the improvement of the socio-economic status of the community as indicated by the statistical analysis performed during this study which indicate a high positive correlation between the shift to modern agriculture in the marshland with the improvement of the livelihoods. However, this study covered only one marshland among many that have undergone reclamation, and this called for further researches in other areas in order to gather sufficient data that can allow to compare the benefits from reclamation such natural resources with the naturally offered ecosystem services.
