IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Research Fellow Dawit Mekonnen were both mentioned in a Reuters article about irrigation. Published on the heels of World Water Week, the article was picked up by The Daily Mail and other outlets.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimates that more than a million hectares of small farms are now irrigated in the region, based on limited government data and satellite images.
In Tanzania, the area of small farms with access to irrigation has risen from just 33,500 hectares in 2010 to about 150,000 today, institute figures show. But up to 29 million hectares in the East African nation alone potentially could be irrigated, said Ruth Meinzen-Dick, an IFPRI researcher.
Boosts in irrigation could help protect the region’s food security in the face of more extreme weather conditions driven by climate change, and be an engine of development, she and other experts said at the recent World Water Week gathering in Stockholm.
“Small-holder farmers’ irrigation is a climate resilience option,” said Dawit Mekonnen, an IFPRI researcher based in Ethiopia.