This post was written by Petra Schmitter and Thai Thi Minh, International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

Weather-related disasters — such as floods, droughts and heat waves — are increasing in frequency and intensity. Over 400 million people are expected to be vulnerable to yield losses due to climate change. A gap between current adaptation levels and those needed persists, driven in large part by limited capacity and financial support. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that adaptation needs will reach $127 billion per year for developing countries alone by 2030. At the moment, adaptation accounts for a mere 4-8% of tracked climate finance, which totaled $579 billion in 2017-2018. Existing adaptation options can reduce climate risks if they’re sufficiently resourced and implemented quickly.

Climate-resilient farming, business practices and technologies can significantly increase yields, as well as improve production sustainability, enhance diversification and reduce climate shock risks during production. Whilst much emphasis has been placed on genetic technological advances, such as drought-tolerant seeds and associated good agronomic practices to build farmer resilience, the role of water management in agricultural systems and resource mobilization have received less attention.

Whilst agriculture has been seen as the largest freshwater consumer, smallholder farmers in many countries face economic water scarcity preventing them from building climate resilience. Farmer-led irrigation development (FLID), where farmers drive their own irrigation investments, has been seen as an important avenue by governments and development partners to build smallholder climate adaptation, increase food and nutrition security, farmer livelihoods and women empowerment. The World Bank is increasing FLID-related investments through government programs in Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria. Despite its huge potential, the pace at which FLID has been expanding has been slow. This has been mainly attributed to systemic barriers influenced by policy and legal frameworks, underdeveloped irrigation technology and supply chains, knowledge of value chain actors and farmer access to finance, and input and output markets, especially during off-seasons. Strengthening the enabling environment requires private and public actors, research organizations and civil society to coordinate efforts and investments to help unlock these barriers, which are often context specific.

This blog identifies four key research areas to catalyze FLID at scale in a sustainable manner.

Strengthen the knowledge and governance of water resources 

Despite the availability of water resources, in particular groundwater, the fear of the consequences of over-extraction has held back government investments in FLID across countries in Africa and Asia. In many of these countries, data on water resource availability and use, and the potential risks from climate change impacting these resources, is often poorly coordinated and, in many instances, not available to stakeholders. Furthermore, water governance is mainly focused on surface water resources and less attention is paid to groundwater resources. There is a huge potential to harness the latest digital innovations in remote sensing, Internet of Things (IoT) solutions related to irrigation technologies and water accounting tools to fill government data gaps. Research aimed at integrating public and private sector data can fill crucial knowledge gaps and support climate adaptation and enhance water security for communities and the environment. Furthermore, developing innovative ways to link new data insights with behavioral games to strengthen water governance with an aim to reduce risks to overuse across scales will be key.

Develop user-friendly and contextually suitable financing mechanisms and incorporate risk mitigation instruments on both the supply and demand side

Recently, programs have been experimenting with demand-side subsidies with an aim to lower financial barriers to farmers for technology uptake or providing grants to private sector companies to stimulate last-mile service provision to smallholder farmers. Emerging insights show that often demand-side subsidies are mainly captured by elite farmers, and private sector grant-type models don’t always address the needs of different company segments nor stimulate wider partnerships and market development. Furthermore, little emphasis is paid to perceived risks of farmers and private sector companies and to what extent these are further exacerbated by climate change. Research using a holistic approach to strengthening the financing ecosystem that is adaptive to local contexts, addressing water and other related risks and needs in the supply and demand side, is needed whilst providing incentives to address resource sustainability and social inclusiveness.

Enhance the integration of socio-technological-financial innovations and services at the farmgate

Approaches to scaling agricultural innovations and practices remain technocratic, piecemeal and often insufficiently address the needs of the farmers in an integrated manner, preventing wider adoption. For example, bundling solar-powered irrigation pumps with pay-as-you-go financing services and farmer segmentation can lower upfront investment costs for farmers, at the same time enabling the company to tailor its business models to different market segments. There is a need to further develop innovative ways to stimulate socio-technological-financial innovation bundles that are adaptive and reflective to the varying needs of farmers and their crop-based farming systems and the wider enabling environment. Research is needed to identify how we can facilitate systemic, adaptive scaling strategies and stimulate various innovations within the value chains in a way that they simultaneously come together at the farmgate, are accessible and meet the needs for female and male farmers.

Enhance knowledge and capacity of agricultural value chain actors through action research

Often, programs are shaped to enhance the awareness and capacity of farmers on available innovations and practices. However, research shows that enhancing knowledge of actors across the agricultural value chains is equally important when addressing systemic barriers to the enabling environment. At a national or subnational level, multistakeholder dialogues can be an effective mechanism to bridge public-private sector knowledge and policy gaps. Hackathons or internships organized in partnership with the public and private stakeholders can address specific knowledge gaps whilst building the next generation of young, local professionals. Action research aimed to understand the perception of climate-related risks to actors’ decision-making and business operations, as well as bridge climate-related knowledge gaps across agricultural value chains, will be crucial to building food system resilience.