Review of “Drip irrigation for agriculture: Untold stories of efficiency, innovation, and development” (Venot, Kuper and Zwarteveen, 2017)

The scope of this book is very well established in the first three chapters. In Chapter 1, Jean-Philippe Venot lays out an interesting perspective on how drip irrigation technology conquered the world, and how it shifted public policy towards its promotion and subsidisation. Margreet Zwarteveen’s science and technology studies framework in Chapter 2 has a relevance for the analysis of technology adoption, dissemination, and impact, which is applicable beyond drip irrigation. Chapter 3 provides a good background on the design and layout aspects of drip irrigation systems – useful to readers who are less familiar with how a drip irrigation system works. This chapter also discusses problems encountered in drip irrigation, and practitioners’ responses at the field and farm levels.

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