Performance Assessment of Iranamadu Irrigated Agricultural System in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Prime portion of the agricultural sector in Kilinochchi depends on the Iranaimadu tank. Which was rehabilitated in 2017 to increase the capacity, land and water productivity and strengthen farmer organisations (FOs) . The objectives of this study were to assess the performance of Iranamadu irrigation system in terms of service delivery, land and water productivity, analyse the performance gaps between pre and post rehabilitation of the scheme and find out the crop preference of farmers who were neither major nor minor irrigation scheme. (completely depend on rain fed cultivation and agro well) Primary and secondary data were collected. Priramantharanu GN division also was selected purposively for focus group discussion (FGDs) using participatory rural appraisal (PRA). There were 21 farmer organizations (FOs), and performance of 50% FOs was below average. However, there were 30% women in the FOs. Cultivated extent of paddy increased by 20%. Cropping intensity improved 142% to 165%. Paddy productivity increased 4200kg/ha to 5100kg/ha and 5200kg/ha to 5700 kg/ha in Maha and Yala seasons respectively. Productivities of newly introduced OFCs were, cowpea, green gram, black gram, maize and groundnut were 1,000 kg/ha, 1,200 kg/ha, 1,000 kg/ha, 4,000 kg/ha, 2,000 kg/ha respectively. During Maha season, irrigation duty to the field dropped 16,775 m3/ha to 15,850 m3 /ha while, declined 22,510 m3/ha to 14,803 m3/ha during Yala season. Cost sharing of operation and maintenance went up from Rs.500/ha/yr to Rs.750/ha/yr. Essentially, there is a potential to increase the overall performance of the scheme. Farmers preferred neither minor nor major irrigation scheme to cultivate (ranked1) paddy but water was a major crisis for zero cultivation during Yala season.