Cambodia
Agroecological transition in large irrigation systems
The Classic Tale
In Cambodia, TRANSWATER activities are conducted in the Kanghot irrigation system in the province of Battambang in the north-west of the country. Kanghot is representative of large rice-based gravity irrigation systems under the management of the ministry in charge of the irrigation portfolio together with water user associations, called Farmer Water User Communities (FWUC) in Cambodia. These systems face compound issues that make their sustainable management a wicked problem, which the project proposes to address. In Kanghot, irrigation comes with an intensification of rice cultivation (2 to 3 seasons a year) and farmers, mostly advised by input suppliers, are purchasing increasing amounts of fertilizers and pesticides, often on credit, to maintain yields in the face of decreasing soil fertility and increased pest attacks, which raises both environmental and health issues. Yet, yields continue to fluctuate partly because water supply remains inadequate for infrastructural and organizational reasons despite the recent rehabilitation of the irrigation system. Market prices remain volatile too with significant impact on farmers’ revenues in a context where most of them sell their paddy directly after harvest to Vietnamese traders.
These compound dynamics translate into increased (risks and levels of) indebtedness and changes in the structure of land tenure: on one hand, some farmers are forced to sell their land to reimburse their credits while, on the other hand, a process of land concentration is at play. In short, current modes of rice cultivation in irrigation systems are not only unsustainable but also unjust. Aligned with other past and on-going research-for-development initiatives implemented in Kanghot, the TRANSWATER project starts from the premises that agroecology is a promising path to break the current deadlock and aims at supporting an agroecological transition in such rice-based irrigation system. Researchers involved in the TRANSWATER project build on experimental research and knowledge generated in farmers’ fields and experimental stations on the positive impact of agroecological practices (on soil structure and fertility mostly). They contribute to generating knowledge on the diversity of farmers’ practices and socio-economic profiles, the workings of rice value chains, and the institutional and policy framework. This knowledge feeds into the development of a multi-faceted engagement strategy with actors of the rice and irrigation sector at policy, value chain, and local levels. The most visible aspect of this strategy are serious game sessions during which constraints and scenarios for an agroecological transition are collectively discussed, in the hope that these discussions lead to changes in rice cultivation practices and marketing strategies, but also infuse into policy priorities and orientations.
The Reflexive Take
In line with the field of sustainability science, (knowledge) co-production and transformation are central in the TRANSWATER proposal. Taking a step back, however, our activities in Cambodia appear to be very much grounded in an approach whereby (western) researchers are pivotal in the framing of the issues (i.e. the need to transform irrigated rice cultivation along agroecological principles) and of the ways to address these. It is also traversed by different understandings of innovation. TRANSWATER is infused by sociotechnical thinking (and, more broadly, by scholarship that calls for recognizing the situated nature of knowledge making) and the idea that there is no such thing as a “potential” existing independently from “context” but that these are constitutive of each other. But there is also no denying that agronomic experiments that aim, precisely, at measuring the potential of, let’s say, cover crops on soil fertility, shape TRANSWATER activities to a significant extent – for instance the design of a serious game to discuss the conditions under which farmers would adopt a suite of agronomic practices that are tested by researchers concomitantly (such as the introduction of cover crops of alternate wetting and drying), and with what consequences.
In short, in Cambodia, TRANSWATER still reflects an approach centered on researchers’ questions, their understanding of what is important to look at, the transformations that are desirable, and how to make them happen. At least partly. This does not mean such framing is irrelevant – it is indeed informed- but it is only one among many others and, as such, warrants reflexivity. For instance, questions around long-term soil fertility do little in terms of addressing short-term economic concerns – an issue that is not specific to TRANSWATER. As far as the transformative aspiration of TRANSWATER is concerned, let’s turn to the issue of partnership and what this may imply regarding an agroecological transition of rice-based irrigation systems. In Cambodia, researchers involved in the TRANSWATER project are embedded in the national research and policy network; they work in close collaboration with national universities but also with the ministries in charge of the agricultural and irrigation sectors. There is, to a certain extent, co-production after all – at least an institutional agreement. These are actors we deem indispensable to engage with if we want transformations of the scale we feel are necessary to ever materialize. On one hand, such embeddedness can lay the ground for ownership of research processes and results on the part of policy makers and, who knows, even help nudging policy-making. On the other hand, it appears rather unlikely policy makers will drive the changes we call for when the horizon we provide is at odds with their own priorities even if agroecology has a small number of (quite active) advocates within the ministry. Supporting an agroecological transition in rice-based irrigation systems would entail a significant shift away from a still dominant professional working culture that gives the primacy to engineering and infrastructure as far as the irrigation sector is concerned. It would also likely mean breaking away from a model of intensive rice monoculture inherited from the green revolution and inserted in globalized value chains towards diversified smallholdings while the priorities of the ministry of agriculture center on supporting the emergence of a highly-mechanized agro-entrepreneurship sector, associated to the notion of modernity, and on increasing (quality) rice exports. The broader question here is whether (research) aspirations to transformation of a systemic nature can arise from within the network of actors that shape this very system given the redistribution of power this entails.
And a third look at things
And here we give the floor to someone who does not know the area very well to put what we are doing in perspective…
