Irrigated land reaches 2.2 mln. hectares
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia has cultivated more than 113 thousand hectares of land through irrigation during the previous budget year said Minister of Agriculture (MoA).
So far, the country has irrigated 2.2 million hectares of land which benefited more than 4.7 million people. However, the performance is way below the potential due to the low irrigation technology application.
Zeleke Belay, Senior Irrigation Engineer and Technical Advisory to Small Scale Irrigation Expansion and Development Directorate at MoA told The Ethiopian Herald that currently, over 670 thousand irrigation pipelines are delivering services.
The country has a water potential to develop seven million hectares of land “Hence, the sector requires improved attention to fully tap the potential.” For this to happen, MoA has prepared and is implementing the National Small Scale Irrigation Strategy. “The Ministry is also initiating an Irrigation Development Fund to support irrigation projects in the country.”
MoA has adopted a Global Positioning System (GPS) to tackle data collection problem in relation to irrigation projects in Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and SNNPs state. In the current budget year, the Ministry has allocated five hundred million birr to develop 700 small and scale irrigation projects. It has also allocated 1.2 billion birr for 2020/21 as part of a six-year irrigation project which started last year. The project will officially be launched in this budget year.
Absence of National irrigation policy, weak structural institutions, low-level awareness, the poor commitment of stakeholders, and maladministration are the major factors that hindered the development of irrigation in the country. The country has also a rainwater irrigation potential of 4.3 million which the Ministry is also planning to exploit as supplementary irrigation, Zeleke said.
“For this to happen, we have to improve our working environment and build strong institutions,” he said. Currently, the irrigation sector is contributing four percent to the GDP.
The Ethiopian Herald August 29/2019
BY MULATU BELACHEW
