Can a ‘modern’ irrigation system and a traditional smallholder gravitational system coexist? A view from Marakwet, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Irrigation and improved agricultural inputs have been promoted by the New African Green Revolution to close yield gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa. Can this approach coexist with local indigenous irrigation systems? We examine an irrigation scheme financed by both the Kenyan and Canadian Red Cross and put in place in 2015 in Marakwet, Kenya, where a gravity irrigation system has been operated by local people for three centuries. Grounded on ethnographic data, we show how the current rhetoric and operationalization of top-down irrigation projects disregard, instead of harnessing, local agricultural knowledge which would ensure sustainable farming in the context of resource-poor and climate-challenged communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Irrigation
• infrastructure
• smallholder agriculture
• Kenya
• New African Green Revolution

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their gratitude to the residents of Sibou who participated in this research. Thanks to Elizabeth Dever and Brandon Rothrock for help with language proofing and formatting, and to Jaimee Pyron for the map. The authors also thank the two anonymous reviewers who helped to improve previous versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.