Irrigation development and land tenure regimes in Gaya Region (Niger)

The present research aims at exploring the relationship between the development of irrigation and the current land tenure regimes in the Gaya Region (southern Niger). Large quantities of water can be found in this region, unlike main parts of Niger. Those underground resources are easily available at the subsurface with the presence of the Niger River and the major fossil valleys. However, part of this water remains underused due to conflicts between different users and powers' struggles. Despite this context, a growing number of individuals manage to successfully develop small irrigation initiatives, relying on their social networks and technical skills. The rather small amounts needed for investments, as well as the expansion of the land selling practices, are powerful drivers of investments in small irrigation for rural actors but also for non-rural actors,. The investments heading at land improvement could lead to significant consequences for land value and lands rights. These impacts are even larger when considering the overlap of customary and modern rights and institutions. These two systems regard investment differently, when coming to land management issues. In customary land right regime's perspectives, the types of equipment and harvest selected by peasants are not socially neutral. For instance, bore holes digging and fruit trees cropping are forbidden to people holding secondary or derived rights (tenants, share-croppers, borrowers, etc) as these kind of practices are clearly interpreted as a mean to take control of land. On the contrary, anyone can use the tubewells, that allow to reach the subsurface level, in order to practise market gardening. In modern land right regime's perspectives, investments are simply considered as a mean to increase land value, which should be integrated in the costs for buyers and renters.

Owing to that perspective, the research focuses on determining if land tenure situation favours or not the development of irrigation. Furthermore, this will lead to analyse which social group benefit or are disadvantaged by these developments.

Our findings could be summarised in four points.

• The development of irrigation by smallholders (hereafter, smallholder's irrigation) is largely independent from land tenure status of farmers. However, it influences technical and crops options along with water access' conditions.
  Such social constraints of customary tenure regime are effective everywhere in the Gaya Region. Access to water depends on the digging of a borehole in a situation when only primary land right holders are allowed to develop irrigation. Usually, secondary land right holders are largely dependent on opportunities offered by international aid projets. Nevertheless, since subsurface water is accessible in very large sectors of the region, little investments (a tubewell and a fuel pump) can allow a consistent number of secondary rights holders for the irrigation of their land. In the meantime, fruit tree cropping still remains forbidden for these groups, and could be compensated by market gardening that is offering substantial incomes to households.
  
  
• Smallholders irrigation contribute to land circulation
  Land circulation is an ancient tradition in rural Africa. Every newcomer in rural communities was allowed with a piece of land to cultivate. Within the lineages, young people and sometimes women had the same right. Traditionally, if land was lent, it was less often granted. These mechanisms insured access to land for everyone, mainly through social groups and generations interactions. The development of irrigation accelerates considerably land circulation. In Gaya, this process took place slowly, because dry-season crops yields remains good enough to feed most of households and the extra revenues provided by  the selling of products form irrigation are usually unnecessary. Nevertheless, the diminishing of soil fertility along with the demographic increase led to reducing the size of household fields and their performance. These recent trends have generated a tremendous interest for irrigation and the potential income it generates boosted considerably land demand. This demand is coming from both local and external actors, and is thus accelerating land circulation.
  
  
• Smallholders irrigation contribute to land commodification
  Land commodification is a recent trend in Gaya department. Social taboos related to the inalienability of land are still operating, but they become always more challenged as the demand for land is raising. This demand is partly caused by the local demographic growth, but the major raise is largely due to the potentialities offered by irrigation processes. Smallholder irrigation has been strongly promoted by a project funded by the World Bank. It has also been encouraged by the price affordability of the minimal equipment it needs to develop. Therefore, since the ’90, it gained interest among local actors with investments opportunities. However, it reached also numerous actors from outside of the region, mainly civil servants. Thanks to their financial assets, their knowledge and their social networks, those actors were enabled to access land by buying it. The implementation of the Rural Code, which popularised land entitlement, strongly supported this trend. The current situation is characterised by an increasing of land commodification, even if one should consider it as an intermediary stage. These monetary transactions regarding land circulation are not totally regulated by the market, since the concerning information is largely imperfect. The construction of price depends more on social relationship linking the seller and the buyer than on market mechanisms.
  
  
• Land commodification limits the range of possibilities of land tenure arrangements between rural actors. Nevertheless, the possibility to buy land, thanks to the income generated by smallholder irrigation, offer new opportunities for farmers who had a less stable tenure status, to secure their access to land.
  
  Customary land tenure arrangements are traditionally so broad that the concept of “bundle of right” is used to characterize them. This process of land commodification related to smallholder irrigation and, more generally, the ongoing growing demands for land are significantly reducing the capacities of arrangements among actors. Therefore, monetary transactions that are guaranteed by the Rural Code, are progressively considered as the only way secured enough to establish land transactions. It that perspective, vulnerable groups of population, i.e. those whose land was lent, are now frequently facing owners' ultimatum: either they have the capacity to buy the land they harvest, or they are evicted. Sometimes this is even done without compensation. Drawing from this situation, the income generated by irrigation offers new opportunity to secure access to land, especially since land selling is more and more accepted by the customary land rights system. Nevertheless, the most vulnerable groups are lacking the knowledge and often, they also lack the investments's capacities needed to develop irrigation. They are thus trapped into the land lending system. The reinforcement of the current trends could seriously threaten the social equilibrium and expand social inequalities in Gaya region countryside.

                         
                       Small pump and tubewell irrigation’s system

 

                      
                       Tangelos’ harvest (Lawali Dambo)

                                                              

Contacts:

Nicola Cantoreggi 
Institut de géographie 
Faculté de géosciences et de l’environnement
Université de Lausanne             
1015 Lausanne             
E-Mail: nicola.cantoreggi@unil.ch
                                                                    

 

Local partner

Lawali Dambo
Directeur du département de géographie
Université Abdou Moumouni
BP 418 - Niamey-Niger
E-Mail: depgeo@intnet.ne