By Anna Montgomery, International Research and Agricultural Development
PULLMAN, Wash. – To help Kenyan families irrigate subsistence and cash crops, two Washington State University economists are studying the marketing, financing and impact of a human-powered treadle irrigation pump.
Just returned from a month in Kenya, Thomas Byers and Douglas Young have begun the first of three surveys in collaboration with KickStart International, which designs and sells simple tools – like the MoneyMaker irrigation pump – for small farmers.
Byers is an agricultural economist in WSU’s International Research and Agricultural Development program. Young is an agricultural economist with the WSU School of Economic Sciences.
Findings will help determine the viability of different financing methods and how they could help African farmers in similar regions acquire the pump, combat hunger and build assets.
“The continuing poverty in rural areas is heart wrenching,” said Young, who was an agricultural Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya 1968-70. “As Kenya’s population has grown from 10 to 45 million in four and a half decades, farm families have been pushed onto more and more marginal land.”
“Where feasible, human-powered irrigation pumps will help improve the livelihood of these hardworking people,” he said.
Three surveys over two years
Byers and Young will lead three surveys during two years. First, they will identify groups of farmers in different locations where adequate water permits use of the pumps. A second survey will determine how three financing methods- layaway savings, rent-to-own and cash – affect purchase and adoption of treadle pump irrigation technology. This survey will also monitor adoption of the pumps among women, poor households and other groups.
A third impact survey will measure how use of the pumps over an 18-month period influenced family nutrition, health, income and education enrollment of children. The final survey will also include a control group that did not purchase pumps in order to make comparisons.
Encouraging self-investment
KickStart strives to help people in developing countries overcome poverty in a sustainable way by designing and marketing simple tools that smallholder farmers can buy and use to make money. The philosophy is that selling these tools, rather than giving them away, allows farmers to invest in their own futures rather than taking a handout. Since 1998, KickStart has been making and marketing treadle pumps in Africa, with 242,642 sold to date.
Intensifying agriculture through irrigation can encourage job growth
Given Kenya’s rich portfolio of cash crops including coffee, tea, cotton, pyrethrum, tropical fruit, and cut flowers, irrigation can promote much needed job growth. Kenya’s large population stimulates demand for irrigated food crops.
“Unfortunately, a large scale transition to better-paying jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors does not seem promising in the short run for Kenya due to intense competition from China, India, Brazil, Mexico, East Asia and South Africa,” Young said.
“China is making multibillion-dollar investments in Kenya, including a large coal mine and a trans-East African railway, which will provide some jobs in those sectors,” he said. “Tourism and regional finance provide some jobs, but not enough. In the short run, intensifying agriculture through irrigation is the most promising path to stimulate employment and income in the countryside where most poor Kenyans live,” Young concluded.
Contact:
Thomas Byers, WSU International Research & Agriculture Development, 509-335-2980, btom@wsu.edu
Douglas Young, WSU School of Economic Sciences, 509-335-1400, dlyoung@wsu.edu