A case for professionalization of water management in irrigation projects in India
The heavy investment in irrigation in India has not brought the expected benefits and this article argues first that a major difficulty arises from the way irrigated water is administered. The distribution of water is controlled by irrigation engineers who lack the knowledge and information to manage water in a way that maximizes agricultural production and achieves the confidence of farmers. The staffing structure and related professional values discourage the development of a new more appropriate specialism. The article goes on to argue that a new organization of work and associated staffing structure is needed which will encourage a new professional specialization bringing together staff and expertise currently dispersed in separate specialisms in engineering, agronomy and other aspects of agriculture.
Exploring normative commitment with Nigerian extension workers
This paper explores normative commitment using a sample of 60 agricultural extension workers in a voluntary rural development programme. Organizational commitment is related to participation, standardization, and coordination in order to examine their relative influence on the visit effort of extension agents. Age, education, salary, tenure, position, and participation did not have any influence on normative commitment, whereas standardization negatively influenced it. Commitment, along with red tape, influenced visit efforts. Two major conclusions emerge. The first is that traditional personal and role-related antecedents of commitment may be related to instrumental but not to normative commitment. The second is that normative commitment can predict behaviour outcomes in public organizations.
IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN THE WORLD
Large increases in food production are necessary for the world's increasing population. Much can be obtained by placing more lands under irrigation and by improving the operation and management of existing irrigation schemes. The greater portion of newly irrigated lands will come from the developing countries while improvement of existing facilities is necessary in developing and developed countries. For all practical purposes the total water supply of the planet is fixed, but man can manipulate the supply in regard to location and time of use. The greatest potential for new development of irrigated land is through use of groundwater. This should be in conjunctive use with surface water and should be strictly controlled to avoid waste, over-development and salination. Water resources surveys should be carried out where there is a dearth of information and where the end use is planned—not for the sake of making a water survey. New irrigation programmes before 1985 might come to 23 million hectares at 1975 prices of about $40 billion. Improved water management of existing irrigation schemes can probably do more towards increasing food supplies than any other agricultural activity. Such practices would include improvement and rehabilitation of existing irrigation schemes plus training farmers in improved irrigation practices. If this could be carried out on 50 million hectares the returns in increased production would be enormous and might cost as much as $25 billion.