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Refereed/Peer-reviewed Meeting growing demand for water and food in Africa, and other parts of the Global South, presents a significant and critical challenge over the next 50 years. This paper draws on an ongoing project in Africa to outline the research-for-development work that is urgently required to facilitate a paradigm shift in agricultural water management. Such work should lead to increased productivity and profitability of agricultural water use to allow agriculture to release some water to meet the growing needs of other sectors, while still meeting food security needs and contributing to a prosperous rural population.

Contingent valuation is used to elicit irrigators’ willingness to pay for soil moisture tools in irrigation schemes in Africa, with various econometric methods employed to mitigate potential bias. Key results include that there is a neighbourhood effect influencing adoption, and that being located downstream and spending more on irrigation water positively and statistically significantly influenced willingness to pay for tools. The result suggests that although focusing on economic incentives and promoting farmer learning by those using the tools may promote greater adoption, there is likely to still be a need for co-investment by other bodies. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This special issue explores the challenges associated with increasing the productivity and profitability of small-scale communal irrigation systems in a world with growing demand for food and scarc...