Millions of smallholder farmers in developing regions of the world struggle to feed their own families, much less have enough harvest to market for profit. DWFI and partners explored the topic of scaling up sustainable and locally driven solutions for irrigated agriculture for smallholder farmers at the 2017 Water for Food Global Conference, which led to a special Water for Food International Forum (WFIF) held at the World Bank in January 2018 to generate interest in “farmer-led irrigation.”
Subsequently, DWFI has continued to work with and support partners in further developing the concept on-the-ground and sharing knowledge. Examples to date include the following events.
-
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Taskforce on Water and Nutrition, mentioned earlier, embraced farmer-led irrigation as a key emphasis of their 2019 influential report “Managing Water for a Nutritious Food Future.” The council further explored and promoted the concept during their Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., in March 2019.
(L-R) Rob Bertram, Jennie Barron, Selamawit Damtew, Regassa Ensermu Namara, Petra Schmitter, Ariana Constant and Montaha Hassan at the 2019 Water for Food Global Conference. Credit: Brett Hampton. - Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) co-organized a session on farmer-led irrigated agriculture at the 2018 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), along with the World Bank and African Development Bank. The declaration from this event, which drew on the outcomes from WFIF, was included in the plenary session. A follow-up session on the topic was included in the 2019 AGRF.