The effect of introducing pipelines into irrigation water distribution systems on the farm economy: A case study in the Southern Governorates Rural Development Project, Republic of Yemen

The Southern Governorates Rural Development Project (SGRDP) is a comprehens ive participatory rural development project covering three of the five sout hern Governorates of the Republic of Yemen, namely Hadramaut, Abyan and Lah ij. Its objective is to alleviate poverty in rural areas of these three Gov ernorates. A major component of the project is to develop virgin lands for agriculture and allocate each 5 feddan (FD) plot to those farmers who do no t own land (1 FD = 4200 m(2)). As the annual rainfall in the project area i s less than 100 mm and since landlords and other farmers already own lands suitable for agriculture in the major wadis, the only source of irrigation water in the newly developed land is the groundwater (GW). The SGRDP is awa re of the scarcity of water resources in the country, particularly in the p roject area; it therefore makes every possible effort to optimize the use o f GW for irrigation by practical means. One way of reducing GW used for irr igation is by replacing major canals in the farms by buried pipelines. This method has been tried in small-scale individual farms outside the project area and it proved that farmers could adapt to the system without difficult y. Sprinkler and drip irrigation systems have been tried in many previous a gricultural development projects in the country but with no apparent succes s, as far as the farmers' adoption of the method is concerned. Thus, the pr oject, as the first stage to reduce the use of GW for irrigation in the new ly developed areas, planned to eliminate, initially, the conveyance losses by replacing the open canals by buried PVC pipes. In this paper, it is atte mpted to show that the use of buried pipes in small scale irrigation scheme s is financially feasible, even if the indirect and non-tangible environmen tal benefits are not considered. This paper deals only with special GW schemes recommended for the project a rea; however, the outcome could be generalized and applied elsewhere in the country. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.