Evaluation Of The Technical Performance Of A Low Cost Drip Irrigation System For Smallholder Farmers

ABSTRACT It is essential that smallholder farmers in developing countries have access to the benefits that modern irrigation technology seeks to offer. However, this has not always been so because of the inability of smallholder farmers in developing countries to adopt this advanced technology due to cost constraints. The objectives of this study were to design and construct a simple low cost drip irrigation system suitable for smallholder farmers, and to evaluate the technical performance characteristics of the system under field conditions. Attempt was also made to compare the technical performance characteristics of the low cost drip irrigation system to that of a commercial drip irrigation system and recommended engineering standards. The performance parameters evaluated were coefficient of variation of emitter flow, qcv, Emission Uniformity, Eu, Absolute Emission Uniformity, Eua, Statistical Uniformity, Us, Emitter flow variation, qvar, and Application Efficiency, Ea. The qcv and Us values obtained were 15.12 and 84.90% respectively. These values were reasonable by recommended engineering standards. The qvar value of 38.50% obtained is far below the generally accepted standards. However, the application efficiency, Ea, of 94% obtained is considered excellent for such low cost systems. The Eu and Eua values of 76.83 and 73.90% respectively are fair according to generally accepted engineering standards. In general, the performance characteristics of the low cost drip irrigation system designed and constructed, were below that of the commercial drip irrigation system evaluated. This development does notsupport the initial hypothesis that the low cost drip irrigation system would have the same technical performance characteristics as that of the commercial drip irrigation system. From the technical characteristics for the low cost drip irrigation system, it was found that the system had the potential to be improved and could be adopted by smallholder farmers. This will help farmers to realise the benefits of modern irrigation technologies.