Management and maintenance – perennial problems

Co-operation and maintenance

The above examples illustrate, above all, the basic failure of the authorities to obtain the co-operation of the peasants who must operate water development schemes. This could not contrast more starkly (as we shall see) with the way tribesmen or peasants closely co-operate with each other in the operation and maintenance of traditional irrigation systems.

But why should tribesmen and peasants co-operate with the authorities? In effect, they are being asked to behave in a way which is totally contrary to everything they have learnt since childhood. Indeed, it is only through systematically destroying the cultural pattern of peasants and tribal farmers that the latter can be introduced – with any conceivable measure of success – into the market system.

We have already seen, in our chapter on resettlement, how the Sri Lankan government is using the Mahaweli scheme to transform its peasantry from subsistence farmers into “modern agriculturalists”. Another example of the same trend is provided by the government of Zaire’s plan to create a “paysannat indigène”. In that instance, the government was quite explicit about its determination to destroy traditional cultural patterns. Thus, as George Kay points out:

“It was decided . . . that, in addition to normal extension work, an ‘impact scheme’ should be introduced whereby progressive individuals could be relieved of the economic and social difficulties of village life and equipped with the land, capital and technical assistance necessary to enable them to became advanced commercial farmers in a very short time. The object of the scheme was to facilitate the development of commercial farming and rural prosperity by creating a nucleus of proficient peasant farmers who would, by their example, inspire others to improve their farming and seek their living from the land.” [26]

That programme – like many similar ones – failed, the failure being blamed “on the stupidity of the farmers who did not want to become progressive”. [27] The peasants were also seen as incompetent, lazy and incapable of following government instructions.

In fact, the whole scheme might be said to have been doomed from the start. What the Zairian government referred to so disparagingly as “the economic and social difficulties of village life” were, on closer analysis, the very social and cultural customs which for years had governed the behaviour of the local tribesmen. Those customs were essential for maintaining the integrity and stability of both the tribesmen’s society and their environment.

To ask those tribesmen to abandon their customs was thus to ask them to abandon the basic a prioris of their culture – to violate, in fact, every law previously enforced by their elders and sanctioned by their customs. Small wonder, then, that the tribesmen of the area refused to co-operate in the scheme. To have done so would effectively have meant accepting the disintegration of their culture; breakdown of their families and their communities; and their own reduction to the status of despised and badly paid members of a depressed rural proletariat.

Viewed in those terms, their obstinacy was more than justified: it was essential to the survival of their way of life. Indeed, it is a sad reflection on the tenor of modern economic thinking that the majority of development theorists still look upon the cultural constraints of traditional societies as nothing more than intolerable restrictions on individual freedom and, in particular, on the free inter-change of goods and services.

The conflict between food and cash-crops

Quite apart from being asked to accept the total destruction of their culture, those peasants and tribesmen uprooted by water development schemes are also being asked to jeopardise their very security. As Widstrand points out, “government is interested in marketable surplus”. Farmers, on the other hand, “may be more concerned with survival and thus prefer to grow food crops or pay more attention to other crops than the cash crops of the scheme or programme”. [28]

Egypt provides a case in point. Thus, notes Barnett, a conflict has arisen “between the government’s cotton and the farmer’s bread”. [29] If the peasant co-operates with the government and produces cotton, he will have to sell to the government at a price that is only a fraction of the world market price. How, then, can he acquire food for himself and his family – food which he is no longer allowed to produce himself? Moreover, to produce cash crops, he needs both to buy fertiliser and pesticides and to pay for irrigation water – all of which are often beyond his means.

The history of development in the Third World is replete with similar examples of the problems which are caused by forcing tribesmen and peasant farmers to enter the cash economy. Thus, John Gretton of the London-based Earthscan organisation, describes a large-scale agricultural scheme in Senegal in which the peasants were asked to grow rice under irrigation, rather than the more traditional millet. The scheme failed dismally. Only a third of the rice fields were harvested, reports Gretton:

“Though rice is more productive than millet, the peasants were unused to cultivating rice and resented the additional work involved. In addition, there were the problems of switching from a subsistence to a cash-crop economy. People found themselves unable to pay even the cost of fuel for the irrigation pumps. They had to borrow money, which could mean an ever-growing debt.” [30]

The same sad tale is being repeated throughout the Third World today; what is more, it has happened wherever the market economy has been imposed on subsistence farmers.

The advantages of traditional irrigation systems

Anthony Bottrall, who perhaps more than anyone else, has studied the deficiencies of management in water development projects, suggests that the only solution to the problem is to use traditional irrigation systems as a model for new schemes:

“In contrast to the large publicly operated systems, the communal systems are generally well organised: man-management is not one of their problems.” [31]

He refers to the work of E. Walter Coward who points to three important features common to most indigenous communal irrigation systems:

“(i) They have an ‘accountable leadership’: leaders of each local group are selected by members of that group, their performance is periodically reviewed by them and they are compensated for their services directly by the group.

(ii) The systems, although themselves small, are usually sub-divided into smaller sub-units, each with its own leader:
‘management intensity’ is very high. Moreover, each of these ‘mini-units’ corresponds to a discrete physical sub-section of the larger system.

(iii) The Systems are rarely coterminous with village boundaries: they are channel-based, not village-based. Attempts by outside agencies to organise local irrigation groups on a village basis may, therefore, often run into difficulties.” [32]

Coward considers that indigenous irrigation systems can be improved in many ways – although he admits that

“it has been a common experience . . . that governments’ attempts to incorporate communal systems into large projects tend to lead to the disintegration of previously dynamic water users’ groups, because they lose most of their original responsibilities in the process and are given no new ones to take their place.” [33]

However, there are examples in recent times of water-users’ associations being set up very successfully – in Taiwan, for instance – although, unfortunately, efforts to introduce them in other parts of South-East Asia have failed. [34] It is suggested by Nickum that the Chinese have achieved certain successes in this field, but the most recent book on large-scale water development in China does not seem to bear this out. [35]

One of the problems is the difficulty of creating an efficient association of water users out of nothing. Widstrand admits that “groups cannot be conveniently structured or produced, and blanket government decrees to start such groups do not work”. [36] He cites as an example “the death rate” of government introduced co-operatives in East Africa. Nevertheless, it appears that such schemes are still being tried out in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Here we come to the crux of the matter. As Carruthers writes,

“To be successful, planned irrigation technology transfer must include not only the hardware but also the software of services, institutions and attitudes.” [37]

Those attitudes must include the motivation, the ability to co-operate and the know-how to manage and maintain an irrigation system – and these qualities have, historically, only been provided by the cultural pattern of a traditional society. Indeed, where no traditional cultural mechanism exists, either to assure co-operation among farmers or to provide them with the necessary know-how to practice irrigation agriculture, it becomes very difficult to ensure the smooth-running of an irrigation system – let alone its proper maintenance.

René Millon points out, for instance, that once the Hacienda de Arroyo de Enmedio near Guadalajara, Mexico, was divided up in 1927 amongst farmers from a number of different communities, the farmers “were unable to agree to act in concert to keep these lands under irrigation”. As a result,

“the irrigation system was allowed to fall into disrepair. The villagers involved were unable to cope with the problems posed by the necessity for inter-village co-operation.” [38]

Another example of the inability of peasants with no cultural tradition of irrigation to manage an irrigation system is provided by Wolf Roder. Thus, irrigation technology was first introduced to the Shona of Eastern Rhodesia by European settlers at the turn of the century. However,

“the absence of a tradition of customary concepts of water allocation and of community co-operation in maintaining canals, hampered the development of this form of agriculture. As is so often the case, diffusion of technological innovation outran the ability of the social traditions to adjust.” [39]

Many similar examples can be cited.

The question, then, is how to learn from the experience of traditional irrigation societies? We shall look at five such societies. As we shall see, all of them have proved themselves capable not only of managing and maintaining their irrigation works but, most important of all, of doing so without precipitating the ecological and social destruction caused by modern water development schemes.

References

Pages:  1   2   ALL