Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture Project. The objective of the MDIH Project is to increase rural incomes related to commercial horticulture, including for women and youth and establish a sustainable and inclusive model of irrigation, water resource, and land management. The underlying logic of the irrigated horticulture project posits that by building the irrigation infrastructure and facilitating commercial investments on part of the irrigated land, the project will spur growth and investment in the horticulture sector. To further support the long-term objective of equitable growth in the horticulture sector, MCC will support reforms related to land registration and land rights, coordination in the water sector, including to Water Users Associations (WUAs), integrated catchment management (ICM), and capacity support for inclusive service delivery. It is expected that these reforms will not only make the project more viable during the life of this Compact, but also more sustainable in terms of economic growth and climate resilience. The key assumptions in the logic are that suitable anchor farmers will be identified to invest in the schemes and willing to accept contract terms that support inclusive growth, and that the small-holder farmers on the remaining hectares use the water to cultivate high-value crops, and that this change happens within the life of this Compact. In addition, we assume the completion of the irrigation infrastructure can be timed correctly with the roll out of the capacity building, gender and social interventions. and social and behavior change components. An additional assumption is that the necessary legal reforms will be passed early enough such that women can own land and participate in and benefit from the scheme. Finally, a major assumption in the economic model is that the new high-value crops replace South African imports and farmers receive an acceptable price for their crops. Assumptions (numbered in red in the visual)
Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture Project. The MDIH Project addresses the root cause of the binding constraint by supporting medium-to- large-scale Basotho investors in irrigated horticulture, and targeting structurally excluded rural smallholders, including further disadvantaged groups among them, particularly women and youth, to join the pipeline supported by the BETA Project. The assumptions in the MDIH Project ERR pertain to how the three activities of the Project support a sustainable pipeline of the targeted investors: • Based on lessons learned from past irrigation projects, irrigated horticulture farmers need access to: o Land o Water o Fewer institutional obstacles for women and youth o Finance o Business environment services o Irrigation infrastructure o Hands-on training and other social and behavior change support o Product aggregation o Cold chain technology o Markets • The Institutional Reform Activity will address land, water, and gender/youth sustainability issues that resolve the constraint. • In addition to providing irrigation infrastructure, the MDIH Project will have pilot and demo plots to provide hands on training and will attract anchor investors to help small scale farmers with product aggregation, access to cold chain technology, and access to markets. This investment is a result of lessons learned from past MCC and the Government irrigation projects. The assumption that anchor investors will be attracted to the Project that can solve the problems of access to finance, access to markets, and logistics infrastructure, is critical to the success of the project. In addition to supporting the pipeline of targeted investors, the land reforms, water reforms, and gender/youth interventions in the XXX will generate benefits outside of horticulture that are not included in the current ERR. The data needed to calculate benefits for the land reforms is being collected by IFPRI now. The calculation of benefits from the targeted intervention in irrigated horticulture measures agricultural productivity to calculate gross margins from horticulture production of two categories of producers – the anchor investors and the small-scale farmers. Anchor investors are assumed to be successful commercial producers who will be able to maximize production of horticulture products immediately after the land improvements made by this Compact become available. Eighty percent of small-scale investors are assumed to take 10 years to adopt the new irrigation technology, consistent with lessons learned fr...
Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture Project. The evaluation will be a performance evaluation that looks at the changes in income of the targeted beneficiaries, investment in horticulture on the targeted hectares, and distribution of the expected benefits across our targeted sub-groups. We hope to learn if the anchor xxxxxx model works to stimulate growth and help motivate farmers to cultivate higher value crops. We also hope to understand if the reforms in the water and land sectors help promote women and youth economic empowerment and environmentally sustainable livelihoods. The evaluation questions are as follows: • Was the Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture Project implemented according to plan (in terms of quantity and quality of outputs)? • Did the Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture Project achieve its targeted outcomes, particularly its stated objective, in the timeframe and magnitude expected? Why or why not? This question links to the following outcome indicators: Income from land agreements with the anchor farmers; and Income related to irrigated horticulture (Small-Holders). • Do the results of the Market Driven Irrigated Horticulture Project justify the allocation of resources towards it?
