Project review for Bakel small irrigated perimeters

Special evaluation covers the period 3/80-11/81 and is based on document review, extensive site visits, and interviews with farmers, administrators, and project and other-donor personnel. The project has not adhered to its design or the recommendations of the 1980 review team, and is not functioning as an integrated farming project, as no attempt has been made to introduce crops other than rice. Nonetheless, it can be viewed as a successful pilot effort which has exposed irrigation problems common to the Senegal River Valley and proven that high-yielding rice varieties can be grown there at close to their biological potential. Farmers in the area are clearly educable - they rotate water efficiently, use short-season rice in dry fields, show interest in other crops, and in some cases adjust fertilizer use to soil conditions. However, they need more support: agents of the Senegalese Societe pour l'Amerragement et Exploitation du Delta (SAED) often lack experience in the techniques they are teaching; crop protection has been ignored; and due to lack of soil surveys, some farmers are growing flooded rice in unsuitable areas. Also, low nationally regulated rice prices may result in misallocation of farm resources; already farm federations are accumulating surpluses rather than sell at SAED prices. The project has been slow in collecting yield and production cost data. Poor pumping plant maintenance, aggravated by problems with floats and fueling systems, is causing expensive, untimely breakdowns and drastically curtailed equipment life - problems which alone are sufficient to destroy the project's economic viability. Also, many pumping plants and penstocks which deliver water to the canals are poorly designed, the relationship between pump size and system size has been arbitrarily set, and farmers have not been helped to build water courses or level land. The project's solar thermal pump system is too materials-intensive (and maintenance-intensive) to be anywhere near cost-effective, and should be abandoned. USAID/S lacks the capacity to manage complex projects such as this; an effective counterpart relationship has not been established; and no SAED offical participated in this evaluation (unusual in a joint project), nor were project personnel encouraged to cooperate with, or to learn from, the evaluation.