Why has small-scale irrigation not responded to expectations with traditional subsistence farmers along the Senegal River in Mauritania?

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to evaluate why small-scale farmers do not persist with irrigation along the Senegal River Valley of Mauritania. Surveys of all households of 12 villages that combine traditional agriculture with irrigated rice production collected information on workload, inputs and productivity of cropping systems together with food requirement and costs in local markets. Analyses revealed that, at the scale of farming attempted, there is no shortage of labor within most households when irrigated rice is combined with traditional rain fall cropping in the wet season and flood-recession crops in the cold, dry season. There is, however, a major limitation to successful combinat..