Science brief: Assessing the performance of strategic partnership programme for smallholder irrigation schemes

The Government of South Africa supports smallholder irrigation as a means to create jobs, alleviate poverty and boost pro-poor sustainable agricultural and economic growth (DAFF, 2015). To this effect, the Limpopo Department of Agriculture (LDA) (now called Limpopo Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (LDARD)) identified potential farming areas to be developed into commercial irrigation schemes through the Revitalisation of Smallholder Irrigation Schemes (RESIS) programme (Mothapo et al., 2011). The RESIS programme was meant to address the problems of the smallholder irrigation schemes with the following specific objectives; (i) to improve agricultural productivity on the schemes; (ii) to enable the schemes to play a role in local economic development through improved incomes for beneficiaries and their households, and (iii) to improve food security and thus generally improve the livelihoods of the rural communities where the schemes are situated (Maepa, 2011). As a result, many smallholder irrigation schemes benefited from the programme through the installation of modern irrigation infrastructure such as floppy, centre pivots and drip irrigation systems in the Limpopo Province (Maepa, 2011). Mothapo et al. (2011) noted that after the installation of the irrigation infrastructure, there were no farming activities taking place within the irrigation schemes due to farmers not having the necessary inputs and machinery, as well as skills such as marketing to operate on a commercial scale, let alone to operate the schemes. According to LDA (2005), a model that would require less support from the government was preferred as a more sustainable development alternative to operationalise the schemes. The LDA then introduced the strategic partnership programme to operationalise the smallholder irrigation schemes with the objective of commercialisation. This was to be achieved through providing smallholder farmers with assistance in farm production, skills development or empowerment, access to markets, and ensuring that quality, supply and certification requirements of markets are met, while simultaneously recognising the interests of agribusiness to secure and even expand their operations (Maepa, 2014). The model further indicates that the incentives for the strategic partner appointed were to be in the form of profits from farming. At the same time, for the emerging farmers, it was a combination of factors.