The Ugandan government is in the advanced stages of developing and promoting irrigation throughout the country in a bid to respond to droughts that have dented the country's food security.

For generations, Ugandan farmers have relied, and thrived, on rainfall to water the land, with irrigation mostly associated with large-scale schemes for crops like rice or sugar canes or flowers for export. But the climate is changing and droughts are becoming more frequent; a government meteorologist recently said that Uganda had suffered at least eight serious droughts in the last 40 years, compared with only three in 60 years leading up to 1970. The Teso region, in which Katine falls, has been hit by food shortages after much of the area's harvests failed due to drought in the middle of last year.

Last year, government officials say the cabinet directed the ministries of water and environment and of agriculture to develop a national 25-year master plan on irrigation. The plan should spell out the feasibility, the approach and the cost of irrigation schemes throughout the country.

According to the commissioner for water for production in the Ministry of Water and Environment, Richard Cong, the master plan should be submitted to cabinet this month. Uganda's minister for water and environment, Maria Mutagamba, says that cabinet will debate the draft plan and send it to parliament for debate and approval.

"Once parliament passes it, it becomes a policy and it shall be implemented," Mutagamba says, adding that government was taking irrigation very seriously and was looking for funds to take it beyond existing schemes.

Cong, an engineer, says the ministry carried out a countrywide rapid assessment of irrigation potential and requirements. The master plan is expected to show which areas can be used for irrigation in each of Uganda's 81 districts. Irrigable areas have been divided into two categories: category A for those near to permanent water bodies like lakes and rivers and category B for areas to which water will need to be moved into artificial valley tanks or dams.

"For Soroti district, the irrigation potential is estimated at 8,585 hectares [21,205 acres], for category A and 690 hectares for area B, which is a total of 9,275 hectares," says Cong.

Soroti district covers 2,662km sq, of which 406km sq are water bodies. Much of the land is arable, but Cong says priority would be given to areas that are closer to water bodies. "If a land owner does not want to do irrigation, he/she can rent out the land."

Presently, Cong says the total area under formal irrigation in Uganda is 14,418 hectares (35,612 acres) out of an estimated 560,000 hectares with irrigation potential. The plan is to increase the utilisation of category A land from 5% to 10% by 2015, to 25% by 2020 and to 70% by 2035.

One of the reasons for the low levels of irrigation in Uganda has been the reliance on rain-fed agriculture, which has become less reliable with the fluctuations in weather. According to the draft master plan, the government has been reforming the water sector since 1997, culminating, in 2005, in a 10-year water for production strategy and investment plan (SIP), which was reformed earlier this year.

"The revised SIP recognises irrigation as one of the major components of water for production and being core to the eradication of poverty," the draft plan says.

Cost hurdles

But a potential obstacle to the development of irrigation is the cost. The draft master plan acknowledges that development of infrastructure for irrigation is generally beyond the means of the average household or even the private sector.

"Therefore government of Uganda is expected to take the lead in development of infrastructure for irrigation," says the draft plan.

Cong declined to reveal what it would cost the government to implement the plan, saying the costing was still at an early stage.

The draft plan suggests that the costs could be divided into two – off-farm and on-farm. The government would be expected to meet the major costs of transferring water from the water bodies to the gates of the irrigable lands. From there, Cong says, the proposal is that the farmers meet 60% of the costs, while government meets the remaining 40%. The farmers' costs would depend on the type of technology suitable for use on individual farms, but could include digging on-farm tunnels or buying pumps.

Cong says the most suitable pump for most areas in Uganda – including Katine – would be the Ecologics pump, which costs about $500. This pump can get water from 8m deep and up to 20m high within a radius of up to 1km, he says.

Although Soroti's envisaged land area for irrigation is small, the district chairman, Stephen Ochola, says the development of the master plan is a positive step. Still, he has his reservations. "Our country is very good at developing good policies that are never implemented," he says. "My strong recommendation is that when that policy is passed it should be implemented. Does it make sense for my district, for instance, to continue relying on nature when it is surrounded by water?"

However, for irrigation to take off, communities will need a lot of advice and reorganisation. Ochola said that it might be necessary to convince families to live at one end of a village and use the other end for farming activities, for example. Given the settlement and land ownership patterns, that will be a huge challenge.

But for Katine resident Alfred Abilu, who lost more than 2 hectares (around 5 acres) of sorghum, groundnuts and millet to the drought, moving his homestead to another end of his Obiol village would not be a problem, as long as land is not grabbed by other people.

"We used to know that these months are for rains and those are dry months, but things are now changing; so we need help and irrigation can help," says Abilu, a father of six.

The master plan envisages that to popularise irrigation, demand-driven demonstrations will be necessary. And once farmers see that irrigation can be the difference between a good harvest and starvation, the uptake will be expected to increase.