Planet under Pressure

NETAFIM’S COMMUNITY
IRRIGATION PROJECTS
Transforming the Lives of Thousands of Smallholder Farmers
and Delivering on 10 SDGs
By Natan Barak, Netafim
The challenge
In the drought-ridden state of Karnataka,
India, no rain means more than just no
crops. It means that smallholder farmers
may have to sell their land – their only
asset – to repay the loans they took out
to buy seeds and fertilizer.
It is a pattern repeated across many developing
countries, where smallholder
farming accounts for a large portion of
food production and is the basis for the
local economy. Millions of farmers feel
trapped by poor education, lack of access
to water, climate change and droughts,
and outdated farming practices, and they
see poverty as their inevitable destiny.
Reducing dependency on rainfall for crop
production is a key factor for financial
stability and bettering the lives of millions.
This can be achieved with modern
irrigation systems and equitable access
to water. But how can that be done efficiently
in huge numbers when each
individual lacks the financial capacity
to pay for a modern irrigation system
and also has limited ability to adopt
new farming practices and technologies?
Our solution – the Community
Irrigation model
The Community Irrigation model, developed
by Netafim, brings together the
public and private sectors in a joint effort
that brings water, efficient irrigation
equipment, knowhow, new practices
and, above all, hope and prosperity to
these large communities. Community
Irrigation is unique in the way it leverages
economies of scale and organizes
individual smallholder farmers into “irrigation
communities,” along with a fiveyear
commitment by Netafim to operate
the project and train farmers before
handing it over to local communities.
This enables regional government to
implement the large-scale water infrastructure
necessary to bring water to the
water-starved regions. It also gives famers
the modern agricultural practices needed
to set in motion positive knock-on effects
to reverse the cycle of poverty, thereby
creating new employment opportunities
in agricultural production, processing,
transport, and marketing, as well as
reducing rural migration.
An example – the Ramthal project
For the 7,000 smallholder farmers living
in 22 villages in Karnataka, the biggest
single problem was a lack of water that
was distributed fairly.
In the Ramthal Community Irrigation
project, we installed 2,200 km of bulk water
supply and 77,000 km of pressurized
drip irrigation lines across a phenomenal
11,700-hectare area, delivering 11,000 m 3
of water at uniform flow rates every hour
from the pumping station directly to the
plant’s roots – with no evaporation loss.
Providing smallholder farmers with
resource-efficient drip irrigation systems
and digital farming tools enabled them
to double crop yields and increase crop
quality on the same, or even less land
– while using less water, less fertilizer,
and less energy.
This is the power of Community Irrigation,
a model that is directly improving
the livelihoods of 202 villages, 97,000
farmers, and more than 106,000 hectares
of farmland across India. Similar projects
are now being rolled out in Zambia and
Zimbabwe.
The Community Irrigation model
and the SDGs
The 17 UN Sustainable Development
Goals call on us all to work together
to end poverty, protect the planet, and
ensure equitable prosperity. At Netafim,
it is our mission and privilege to have
a business strategy that directly contributes
to delivering 10 of the 17 SDGs,
and that is what we have done in Karnataka
over the last few years with our
Community Irrigation model.
A key aspect of the SDGs we are promoting
is their interconnectedness. Working
in the field of agriculture, every day we
witness how farming, food security, and
the environment are all inextricably connected.
This enables Netafim to make
life-changing impacts on communities.
Thanks to Netafim’s Community Irriga-
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Global Goals Yearbook 2020