Existing Solutions

social capital, persistency, water crisis

technical

social

The Gal Oya project, 1981-85, funded by USAID and Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) with about 36MUSD, had two components: hardware (95% for the rehabilitation of the irrigation infrastructure) and software (5% for studies and introduction of water user associations). This case shows the productivity of investments in social capital enhancement to solve water shortages and obtain better production results with less water.

As Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD) did not exist until 1990, it was the Rural Development Committee in Cornell’s Center for International Studies (CIS) that was responsible for this initiative. Norman was the chairman of the RDC, and also project leader for the RDC involvement in the Gal Oya project from 1980 to 1985. There was no project coordinator in charge of the social accompaniment. The RDC was asked by USAID to work with the Sri Lankan government’s Agrarian Research and Training Institute (ARTI) in implementing the socio-economic component of the project. This included monitoring and evaluation, applied research, and the introduction of farmer organization (the latter became the major part of the socio-economic component).  Field activity was initiated in early 1981 when young organizers were recruited, trained and deployed to catalyze farmer cooperation and assumption of responsibility for system rehabilitation and operation at their level (field channel level). When the project was terminated at the end of 1985, there were about 12,500 farmers running their own hierarchically-organized structure from the bottom-up, with farmer representatives at each level. (Plus another 10,000 Tamil farmers in the lower reaches who could not be formally part of the organization because of LTTE threats.) In 1997, 12 years after project withdrawal, when the reservoir level was so low that the Irrigation Department recommended no rice planting that season, the farmer organizations convinced the administration to simply assure a fixed quota of irrigation water which they could manage on their own. Farmers through careful optimization of water distribution were able to get a normal (or better) yield with one-third the usual water allocation for the dry season, demonstrating the capability and sustainability of their organizations. Moreover, head-end Sinhalese farmers shared the limited supply of water equitably with Tamil famers in the lower part of the system, despite the violent inter-ethnic conflict going on elsewhere in the country, demonstrating farmers’ commitment to equity as well as to efficiency in irrigation water distribution. 

In 1988, the Cabinet made farmers’ participatory management in irrigation schemes national policy, and within a few years, there were 250,000 farmers in the system of farmer organizations.  A 1991 evaluation of the Gal Oya system by IWMI researchers found that water productivity (kg of rice per m3 of water) had increased four-fold.

The system is replicable elsewhere because it was introduced through purposeful initiatives, establishing or reinforcing norms and values (cognitive forms of social capital), and role, rules, precedents and procedures (structural forms). A similar program under a subsequent USAID project in Nepal established similar water management improvements in the Sirsia-Dudhaura scheme in the terai, bordering the Indian state of Bihar, with social, economic and other problems. 

Social capital was seen in the Gal Oya case to be most beneficial in times of crisis, when cooperation for mutual benefit is most needed and has the highest payoff.  More frequent and more severe crises will be, unhappily, the fate of many countries in the future.

Gal Oya, in the eastern dry zone of Sri Lanka

The Agrarian Research and Training Institute (ARTI) of Sri Lanka, with the help of Cornell University, USA, implemented the institutional component of the Water Management project, which was funded by USAID and managed by the Irrigation Department of Sri Lanka.

The farmers and their representative, and the institutional organizers who assisted them. In the second phase, after the pre-project assessment of C2M Hill, which was then the technical advisor to the ID for the technical side of the project (95%), while as Cornell was advisor for the social side (to ARTI). ARTI’s budget was covered by the ID as part of the GSL contribution to overall project cost.

 The organizers and the farmer organizations.  ‘A skeleton team’ of 8 organizers was left behind after 1985, then reduced to 2;  as the other 6 were redeployed to start this process in other irrigation schemes after 1988 when participatory irrigation management became national policy. Some were absorbed into a World Bank irrigation management project from 1985 on. The ID established a cadre of ‘Institutional Development Officers’ composed mostly of experienced IOs.

Is it possible to produce more with less water, especially in drought situation, with a reasonable level of funding? To what extent can ‘software’ innovations accomplish water savings and productivity more economically than ‘hardware’ solutions? [It is not an either/or proposition – if there had been no main system rehabilitation, what farmers could accomplish by themselves at field-channel level would have been limited, although more urgently needed than ever.]

Practically all irrigators were small farmers. The original allocations per household had been 4 acres, and then 2.5 acres, but most holdings had been subdivided at least once already; average holding was 1.75 acre.  [There were a few persons who had (illegally) agglomerated large holdings;  probably the area under their control was not more than 2-3% of the total area]

 HOW something is done is as important as WHAT is done. The experience shows what is POSSIBLE, rather than what is PROBABLE; qualitative and psychological factors are really key, ESPECIALLY for something like social capital, but this applies to all development work. Continuous problem-solving and perseverance, and even a little deviance to get around GSL or USAID bureaucratic constraints, were necessary.  The lessons from Gal Oya are about what is possible, with appropriate philosophy, strategy, and very dedicated, like-minded people working together, within groups and across/between groups.

The main condition is to put structural and cognitive social capital into action through catalysts. Training and social action experts can help the farmers to organize and mobilize, even though the solution belongs to the farmers themselves through their own discussions and from learning by trials and errors. The work implies many meetings, negotiations, advocacy… and time. This enables to put in action the existing elements of social capital which are embedded in people’s thinking, belief systems, repertoires, self-images, etc.  

The average productivity of land is 10% higher than if inequity prevails, and 3.5 times more valuable in terms of income, but in water terms, there was 4 times more productivity – paddy produced per volume of water. Since water was the limiting factor, its productivity is the most relevant.  More important also is that the investment  made in software (

The solution has persisted during many years (at least 23 in this case, from 1985 to 2008 and longer). It was not ‘social capital’ that was created or put in place, since that is just a concept, a category to group  somewhat dissimilar, but in certain respects homogenous, things together. The category itself does not EXIST, only the things within the category exist; and in this case, what was instilled, or reinforced, in farmers’ minds, were knowledge and acceptance of certain roles, rules, precedents and procedures, reinforced by compatible norms, values, attitudes and beliefs.

Quantitative indicators : surface area put under cultivation, rice production, water consumption ratio per surface area, and per kg of rice produced, income and simulation comparisons, number of organizations by levels, number of farmers organized, negotiation agenda within the institutions, pace at which the farmers organize by themselves,  the length of time of the persistence of social capital [the latter is most important]…

Qualitative indicators : the farmers’ own assessment of the utility, effectiveness, etc. of their WUAs; what problem-solving capacity was created, so that farmers can go on to deal with other things that are constraints or can introduce further innovations that improve their lives; the civil peace that water cooperation brings as Sinhalese cooperated with Tamil; upstream farmers accepted to use less water [with less water they could actually get more yield as it is a myth that rice performs better in standing water; see the work that Norman has  been engaged in since mid-90s on System of Rice Intensification (http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu)]

After 4 years of duration of the project [fieldwork started in early 1981, after a year of preparations for field work, including delays], 12,500 farmers were organized and trained in social capital practices [plus about 10,000 Tamil farmers, but not officially because of LTTE threats]. 6-7 years later they were  250,000 nationally without the help of exogenous experts[this figure was given by an ADB advisor Jeff Brewer in 1992, according to Norman]

It is most beneficial in times of crisis, which will be unhappily the fate of many countries in the future. In crisis situation, human beings are more willing to cooperate on water which is crucial for their livelihood than a war factor; under the condition that they share a minimum of human values of cooperation. As the water is a flow, it is more easily considered by all as a common good. [Except, scarcity and conflict CAN make people feel more insecure and less willing to share and cooperate; there is nothing mechanistic/deterministic about this process – see Part II of the Gal Oya book by Uphoff]

Recognition in the water law of the role of irrigators to co-manage water, sharing the resource with other users, in the proper administrative bodies (local, regional, national, watershed agencies…).

Training agencies should train more organizers on the social and institutional techniques.

Institutions should finance more organizers on the field.  

Find adapted mechanisms to sustain small irrigators to organize by themselves and activate the cognitive elements of social capital, for instance, by the support to rural development NGOs [social capital has cognitive elements that need to be activated and sustained; the law is a blunt and often ineffective instrument for dealing with the subjective/normative side of human nature]

If the culture is a “cowboy” or a selfish culture, it certainly hinders the solution to work [although, the same organizational strategy was getting similar results in the terai of Nepal, a stone's throw from the Indian state of Bihar, notorious for violence, caste divisions, economic exploitation, etc.]

The first thing to do is to determine a strategy to put in action the cognitive elements of social capital (based on a minimum of shared values) that have to be activated and sustained, through the support of the farmers at the base to encourage them to organize by themselves, with the help of well trained and accepted organizers to catalyze the social capital enhancement.

The presence of a minimum of 1 organizer by 150 to 250 farmers is advised at the start. These organizers must be recruited and trained to deal with social capital formation. [Organizers had 150-250 farmers each, in multiple field channel groups; and as farmers became partners in helping to spread the program, the IO presence became lighter. By the end of the project, December 1985, we had just 8 organizers left in the cadre, having trained 165 over the preceding four years. Few programs can succeed with a 95% turnover in staff, but farmers took over responsibility in spite of – or maybe because of – this turnover.]

Sri Lanka at a national level, decided to replicate the Gal Oya scheme system of organization to other rice production regions of the country. USAID supported a similar (and similarly successful) effort in Nepal, 1986-89, terminated when there were political and others problems with the project, at the center, not at field level.

Norman Uphoff

Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development

292 Caldwell Hall

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853

Phone: (607) 255-0831 (work), (607) 257-6660 (home)

Fax: (607) 255-1005        E-mail: ntu1@cornell.edu [contact information]

C. M. Wijayaratna

Consultant (Agricultural Economics/Rural Development)

17 Vanbrugh Place

Bucklands Beach

Auckland, New Zealand

Phone: (64-9) 537-3764                 Fax: (64-9) 537-3764

E-mail: wijay@titan.co.nz

Gal Oya reports available at request. Detailed history of the project is presented in book by Norman Uphoff, LEARNING FROM GAL OYA: POSSIBILITIES FOR PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT AND POST-NEWTONIAN SOCIAL SCIENCE, Intermediate Technology Publications, London, 1996.