In the final week of October, Scene went to Uganda’s West Nile region, ready to host the second series of participatory workshops for the REFRUIT irrigation project before the start of the pilot trials in December. Begun in June 2019, the solar-powered precision irrigation project provides a unique product and business approach for irrigation solutions in East Africa, combining the expertise of its four project partners Scene, Farm-Hand, Futurepump, and the Gulu Agricultural Development Company (GADC) in Uganda.
Participatory workshops with local farmers were critical to design a product that generates meaningful and appropriate benefits for its users. The first set of workshops for the project were held in July and included over 40 participants including local smallholder farmers, GADC staff, and governance officials from the local Rhino Camp District. These workshops gathered baseline information around farmers’ perceptions towards irrigation and agricultural technologies, and their experiences with changing weather patterns. They also introduced us to the group-based governance structures used by some farmers to raise finance for new equipment and allocate shared responsibilities.
“See it to believe it” - getting hands-on to build trust and confidence.
The week-long visit in October was accompanied by Futurepump and had a highly practical focus. After introductions, prayers, and a re-cap of the project, Futurepump lead the first day by hosting a hands-on demonstration of the pump. Women especially were encouraged to familiarise themselves with the hardware, and all were quizzed afterwards. “Our farmers in Uganda need to see it to believe it”, we were told by a GADC staff member during our last visit in July, referring to the occasional difficulty of gaining the trust of farmers in adopting new agricultural technologies. His advice rang true – not only did our hands-on demonstration of the irrigation pump begin the week with a tangible and exciting reminder of the project’s ultimate goal, but it also set into gear the process of learning, empowerment, and cooperation among the pilot farmers surrounding this new technology, essential for the project’s success.
Participatory workshops with practical outcomes.
The next workshops focussed on the farmers’ use of and access to mobile phones, as well as their seasonal routines for land preparation, irrigation, and crop harvest. This information was not just for contextual understanding, but had real practical outcomes for the project’s development. For example, based on the farmer’s descriptions of their poor access to mobile phone charging units, USB ports on the pumps were opened for convenient solar charging.
We also used the farmers’ input to co-design the mobile phone communication platform - the farmers will send text messages to control and view the pump’s irrigation schedules, provided wirelessly by Farm-Hand. The content, timing, and language of the sms platform were all voted on by the farmers according to their daily schedules and preferences.
By directly integrating farmer feedback into the product’s design in this way, these participatory workshops helped Scene to develop an sms-based irrigation solution which provides maximum impact at as little cost as possible to its users.
Remaining flexible in the field.
The final days of the trip were packed with site visits and pump installations on the pilot farms. Despite the long drives across muddy and winding tracks under the baking sun, these were some of the most rewarding days of the entire trip, allowing us to see the very soil on which the pumps would be used in just a few weeks. Among fields of sesame, maize, tomatoes, cotton, and sorghum, we took measurements of soil quality, farm size, distance to the water source, mobile phone signal, and planting patterns for the pilot crops. We observed the farmers’ ingenuity and enthusiasm in their approach to installing, carrying, and adjusting the pumps. In some cases, the whole village came to watch the pump’s installation.
But we also faced unexpected challenges which required flexibility and patience from both the farmers and ourselves. Given the farmers’ busy schedules and their crops’ different growing times, some of the land was not yet prepared for us to take measurements; some of the farms had intermittent mobile signal; some were further from the water source than we had expected; and, while the Village Savings and Loans Associations help to distribute the financial, security, and labour costs associated with the pump, they also require additional organisational time and effort.
Working closely with our partners and the farmers themselves, we are rising to the challenge of overcoming these obstacles to pilot this 21st Century irrigation technology as a replacement for - in some cases - carrying water to the fields in jerry cans! There will be a need for more learning throughout the pilot as we understand how the technology can be scaled, to help farmers improve productivity and reliability while the climate becomes increasingly unpredictable.
We are extremely grateful to GADC for supporting us with the necessary materials, transportation and connections during our stay, and especially their Area Coordinators Julius and Philliam for their willingness and hard work, ready for trials to start in December.
