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This article explores the value of Ostrom's socio-ecological systems framework and Meadows's leverage point hierarchy, as structured diagnostics, to define systemic problems and avoid approaches based on linear thinking. These frameworks were applied as an ex post analysis of an irrigation scheme in Zimbabwe, drawing on the scheme's baseline condition and the intervention outcomes. Strong leverage points, particularly those driving feedback mechanisms and institutional design, interacted with other intervention points, initiating systemic change. This analysis suggests that dysfunctional schemes can be transitioned towards complex adaptive systems by using agricultural innovation platforms to identify systemic challenges and intervention points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful irrigated agriculture is underpinned by answering two critical questions: when and how much to irrigate. This article quantifies the role of the Chameleon and the Wetting Front Detector, monitoring tools facilitating decision-making and learning about soil-water-nutrient dynamics. Farmers retained nutrients in the root zone by reducing irrigation frequency, number of siphons, and event duration. Water productivity increased by more than 100% for farmers both with and without monitoring tools. Transitioning smallholder irrigation systems into profitable and sustainable schemes requires investment in technology, farmers and institutions. Importantly, technologies need embedding in a learning environment that fosters critical feedback mechanisms, such as market constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies are scarce linking planned farmer adaptation practices with their actual practices over time. This study addresses this gap by investigating planned and actual adaptation behaviour, using data collected in 2014 and 2017, from various irrigation schemes in south-eastern Africa. Four planned farm adaptation indexes were created and analysed, with findings suggesting that land size, previous adaptation experience and credit access were positively associated with all types of adaptation. The results from the two waves of survey analysis also indicated very different influences between planned and actual practices, with the proportion of farmers actually undertaking a particular practice far greater than those who planned to undertake it. This result might be related to the project intervention within the study schemes, where numerous factors previously hampering irrigation were resolved, increasing farmers' ability to adapt. Enhancing the availability and quality of education, extension services and finance could be valuable in encouraging further farm adaptation. • Influences of planned and actual farm adaptation behaviour in Africa were studied. • Both cross-sectional and panel datasets were used for 2014 and 2017. • Irrigators tend to engage more in expansive and accommodating practices. • Planned and actual farm behaviour differed over the three-year period. • Past behaviour strongly linked to planned behaviour but not with actual behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]