Improved collective decision-making in action for irrigated rice farmers in the Senegal River Valley

The gap between potential and actual yield levels reveals an opportunity for increasing productivity without technological innovation within irrigated rice systems. A participatory approach to promoting integrated crop management in rice cultivation has been tested as part of a village irrigation scheme on the Mauritanian side of the Senegal River during the wet seasons of 1998, 1999 and 2000. This approach was based on simulation-aided collective decision-making for the purpose of organizing a planned cropping calendar for the entire target irrigation zone prior to the beginning of the growing season. Moreover, a software called “CalCul” (for “Calendrier Cultural” or “Cropping Schedule”) was introduced; this application is based on the knowledge acquired on irrigated rice cropping in the Sahel region stemming from two sources: agronomic understanding, thanks to the irrigated rice development simulation model RIDEV; and management notions on the rice production system within the Senegal River Valley irrigation schemes. This participatory research-driven effort applied in the Senegal River Valley has combined diagnostic monitoring, discussions with the farming community and advisers about organizational and technical changes, cropping calendar planning at the level of the irrigation scheme, and then a repeated monitoring exercise. This orientation has led to increasing gross margin at the irrigation scheme level by over 80% without having to implement any technological innovation.