Assessing the farmers’ awareness and practices of irrigation water conservation techniques in Kano – Nigeria

Abstract

Irrigation water conservation methods are strategies for reducing water demand and increasing its availability. This research assessed the level of farmers’ awareness and practices of irrigation water conservation methods in Kano State, Nigeria. A survey was conducted in twenty (20) irrigation projects located at various local government area within the state. Structured questionnaire was used in collecting information from the farmers using Kobo collect application and descriptive statistic was used to analyses the data obtained. Based on the result obtained from the survey 85.68% of the respondent’s uses dams as their source of irrigation water while 10.59% and 3.73% uses tube well and river as their sources of water, respectively. The survey revealed that 74.12% of the farmers do not experience decline in water supply while 25.88% of farmers encounter shortage of water supply, and this may result from seepage loses, present of weed or siltation of the conveyance canals at the upstream of the schemes. However, about 62.94% of the responded were unaware and do not practice any water conservation techniques while 27.84% and 9.22% were applying manure and rice straw, respectively to conserve moisture as a means of water conservation. It was concluded that the irrigation water conservation is poorly practiced by the farmers in Kano State and it is based on this note that government, water users’ associations and other stakeholders should provide a policy that encourage farmers to adopt some water conservation techniques and concepts for optimum utilization of water resource.