THE NEED FOR IRRIGATION
Irrigation is the artificial way of applying optimum amount of water to the crops for its growth and development and that water do not come directly from rainfall but from other sources such as rivers, streams, lakes or already harvested and stored rainwater. Irrigation needs water availability and without water irrigation cannot be practical for crop production.
The crop needs water during its growth and development and in less developed countries such as Tanzania it depends mainly on rainfall to supply water to the crops. Therefore people from different areas have got different rain seasons for cultivating their crops and during the dry seasons no more crop production can take place due to inadequate rainfall. From that introduction let’s go now to know why do we need irrigation for sustainable development of agriculture for production of food crops and crops for industrial use as raw materials.
1. 1. Irrigation ensures supply of water throughout the year therefore there will be no need to wait for the rainy season. Irrigation can be applied in dry areas i.e. arid and semi-arid areas and ensure water availability to the crops during the period with no rainfall.
2. Global climatic changes also push forward the need for irrigation as there is variation in the seasons of crop production. The season varies from one year to another and even the duration of rainfall varies. These give much confusion to the farmers and therefore they end up losing their crops due to these uncertainties. Irrigation is important here to supplement rainfall in those periods with no rainfall.
3. Irrigation increases crop productivity up to 50% as compared to rain fed agriculture. When irrigation skills are well applied to the farmland and the required amount of water is supplied to the crops productivity increases and the farmer will benefit by getting excess food and money after selling!!!.
There are many reasons why we need irrigation for the crop production. The reasons mentioned above will just give a general overview and positive attitude to the people who involve or who want to involve in agriculture to invest much in irrigated agriculture rather than depending only on rainfall
types of irrigation that do effective in our locality are such as drip irrigation,and others also you can read more about irrigation skills
types of irrigation that do effective in our locality are such as drip irrigation,and others also you can read more about irrigation skills
