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Experiences and observations concerning the implementation of an irrigation project
Agric. Admin. & Extension
24 (1987) 99-105
Experiences and Observations Concerning the Implementation of an Irrigation Project* H. D. Akroyd ‘Weavers’,
1 Oaklands
(Received
Road, Groombridge,
23 December
Kent, Great Britain
1985; accepted 6 February
1986)
SUMMARY This pape; presents experiences gained in the implementation of an irrigation project in a tropical country. The project was set up as a 3000 hectare government farm. Problems which arose included cost escalation, failure to complete the land levelling requirement, the siltation of irrigation canals and drainage channels, farm machinery operating d@iculties, and shortages offield labour. As time passed the area under crops reduced. It is argued that the range of cropping options open to project management was restricted by the decision made to implement the project as a government farm. Some of the crops grown were not well suited to the farming environment of the project area. InsufJicient attention was paid to crop and labour planning, and to farm management jinancial analysis in the early stages of the planning process. The project might have met with more success had it been implemented as a settlement scheme. Here, farm machinery and labour problems would have been fewer, the limited need for imported machinery would have lowered foreign exchange costs, and the range of crops that could have been grown might have been larger. The importance of project monitoring and supervision by both government and donor is stressed.
BACKGROUND The irrigation project is located in a tropical country, and the soils of the project area are flood plain vertisols. The project area has a bi-modal * This paper Administration.
does not necessarily
represent
the views of the Overseas
Development
99 Agric. Admin. & Extension 0269-7475/87/$03.50 England, 1987. Printed in Great Britain
0 Elsevier Applied
Science Publishers
Ltd,
100
H. D. Akroyd TABLE Season Year One First rains Second rains Year Two First rains Second rains
1
Area A
Area B
Groundnuts Cotton
Maize Sesame
Maize Sesame
Groundnuts Cotton
rainfall pattern, and a river is close by which is used asa source of irrigation water. It is possible to grow two crops per year. The project feasibility study advocated the irrigated production of cotton, rice, and groundnuts on 3000 hectares of land, the fields being irrigated on a furrow system. The project was intended to be, at that stage,a settlement schemefor 750 families, the land being divided into fields of 36 hectares.Each family would be allocated four hectaresof land, two hectaresin each of two fields, so that 18 families would be responsible for the irrigation of 72 hectares. Subsequently, the project preparation report recommended a crop rotation of groundnuts, cotton, fallow, and rice to be implemented over successive two-year periods. At appraisal, the objectives of the project were defined as increasedfood self-reliance, import substitution for food, and the creation of new employment opportunities. At this time the settlement scheme proposal was dropped in favour of the establishment of a large-scale government farm which would employ hired labour. Farmers already living in the project area would be resettled elsewhere. Mechanisation of crop production was envisageddue to constraints imposed by the clay soils, and by the relatively short time available between the two growing seasons.The basic design, of fields of 36 hectares each, was retained. The main project investment costs were land clearance and levelling; irrigation and drainage works; farm machinery and equipment; and buildings. The project was to be financed by government and an external donor, with an investment period of four years.An overall contingency allowance of nine per cent was applied to project base costs. The project would be supervised by an Irrigation Agency, and a project management team would be appointed which would include three internationally recruited staff a Project Manager, a Field Manager, and an Irrigation Engineer. It was also suggestedat appraisal that the project area of 3000 hectares would be divided into two parts, each of which would be double cropped (Table 1). The plan would result in 1500 hectares of each crop in each year. Rice
Experiences
with an irrigation TABLE
2 Tonnes per hectare
Crop
Shelled groundnuts Cotton Maize Sesame
and fallow were grounds that the it would be too crop yields were
101
project
Year One
Year Four and On
1.3 1.2 1.5 0.5
1.7 2.0 2.5 0.8
deleted from the cropping plan. Rice was dropped on the crop had a high requirement for irrigation water, and that costly to control crop damage caused by birds. Projected as shown in Table 2.
PROJECT
IMPLEMENTATION
The project became loan effective eleven months after appraisal, and work then commenced on land clearance and on the construction of the main irrigation canal system. Both these tasks were completed. Some two and a half years after appraisal it was estimated that the foreign exchange costs of the project had increased by 153 per cent. This was attributed to rising costs of items of imported machinery, and to a sharp increase in the world prices of petroleum products. It was debated whether the cost over-run problem could be solved either by deleting some project components, or by reducing the scale of the project. Neither solution was deemed possible as all components were complementary, and as the clearance of the 3000 hectares, and the construction of the main irrigation canal system to serve that area, had already been completed. The government agreed to meet all cost over-runs. Despite the foregoing, the provision of land levelling and of subsidiary irrigation works was only completed for a cropping area of some 1600 hectares. Land levelling works were to be done by an external contractor. However, the target of 3000 hectares was not met because the machinery and equipment necessary for the work were sent away to another part of the country to do work of higher priority; the cost of the work to be done increased as time passed and the project lacked sufficient funds to get the job completed; and the contractor’s machinery and equipment eventually fell out of use due to lack of spare parts. When cropping commenced it became apparent that some 500 hectares of the 1600 hectares had been badly levelled due to a lack of appropriate
102
H. D. Akroyd
equipment at the time when the job was done, and becausethe work was done too quickly in order to bring the fields into production in the shortest possible time. As a result some fields had ‘high’ areas which the irrigation water could not reach. Subsequent farming operations without land planing gradually made the situation worse. Efforts were made in places to raise water-course levels in order to achieve command over ‘high’ areas. This has dangersas it can lead to increasedwater lossesthrough seepage,to the failure of water courses,to over-watering of ‘low’ areas,and to erosion at water outlets becausethe excessiveheadscause high water velocities at the structures, where lateral banks are broken, or where siphons are used. Some of the farm machinery bought for the project proved to be inappropriate for the environment, such as reversible mouldboard ploughs, rotavators, and low-powered tractors. Sixteen 35 horsepower tractors had to be sold, to be replaced with fewer though more powerful tractors. There was also a problem of poor machinery maintenance and a shortageof spare parts. After six years of cropping, much of the farm machinery was nonoperational. The position at the end of the sixth year of cropping was that half of the main irrigation canal system had never been used,and the half in use had a siltation problem. The quantity of silt carried in the river had increaseddue to drought in the upper catchment area. The silt clogged the irrigation pumps, and resulted in heavy deposits in the headpool, main canal, and distributary canals. The drainage system was also silted, poorly maintained, and in parts was choked with weeds.The absenceof action to remedy the situation was attributed to staff shortages and lack of appropriate maintenance equipment. The international recruitment procedure specified at appraisal for the employment of three senior management staff was not followed, and a national of the country was employed as Project Manager. At the end of the sixth year of cropping the project employed some 200 permanent staff, one third of whom were in administrative positions. However, at the same time the project sufferedfrom a shortage of labour for the operation of the irrigation system. Hired workers were unwilling to put in long hours on irrigation work, and it proved almost impossible to keep labour in the fields for the recommended time required to complete each irrigation cycle. Problems were also experiencedin hiring seasonallabour for crop weeding and harvesting. To some extent these difficulties were due to the facts that there were no schools, shops, or markets close to the project site; also, most of the workers lived in a town some distance from the project site. The maximum annual area cropped in the first six years was 1650 hectares.By the sixth year the cropping area had fallen to a little over 800
Experiences
with an irrigation
project
103
hectares.This was mainly due to irrigation and farm machinery problems, but also due to farm labour problems. In the first year of crop production 36 hectaresof cotton were grown, but thereafter no cotton was produced due to a shortage of labour for picking the crop. Despite the findings of the appraisal report, rice was then introduced into the crop rotation to replace cotton, with combine harvesting adopted to overcome the labour constraint at harvest time. The results of six years’ work showed that rice yields of 1.9 tonnes per hectare were possible, but casual labour for weeding was scarce and the crop suffered from the depradations of birds and rats. At one point, no proprietary rat poisons were available in the country for several months. On another occasion, two varieties of rice seed were accidentally mixed (having different maturity dates)which gave rise to harvesting problems. In general, the purity of the available rice seedwas unsatisfactory. Yields of sesame never exceeded 0.5 tonne per hectare, and problems were experienced at harvest times due to ‘shattering’. Groundnuts were grown for three years. However, the crop failed as it was not well suited to the clay soils of the project area, and it suffered badly from the incidence of ‘rust’ (Puccinia arachidis). The Ministry of Agriculture then recommended that groundnuts be no longer produced at the project. Maize yields reached 2.2 tonnes per hectare in years of good rainfall and good crop management. However, maize was a low value crop in relation to irrigation and machinery operating costs. OBSERVATIONS With the benefit of hindsight and the development of agricultural project planning methodology, it is easy to claim that the objectives of the project were ill-defined. This is a common problem with agricultural projects in less developed countries.’ The desire for increasedfood self-reliance,and for an improvement in the national balance of trade are commendable objectives. The wish to create new employment opportunities needs more consideration. On the one hand, the project employed too many permanent staff, one-third of whom were occupied with administrative work; on the other hand, the project sufferedfrom shortagesof irrigation labour, and of seasonal cropping labour, which should have been foreseen.No mention was made at appraisal of other possible objectives, such as a wish to achieve a more equitable distribution of income (albeit in a small way) or for the need for equitable regional development. It was decided at appraisal that the project objectives would be met by the creation of a large-scale mechanised government farm. Scarce foreign
104
H. D. Akroyd
exchangewas required to buy farm machinery (some of which proved to be inappropriate for the project environment) and to keep the machinery in operation. Problems arose concerning the maintenance of the machinery and the provision of spare parts, and farm labour was hard to find. Insufficient attention had been paid at appraisal to labour planning on a month by month or task by task basis, or to the provision of housing and amenities for farm workers. It would appear that the decision to set up a government farm restricted the choice of crops that could be grown at the project ‘site. Some crops proved to be inappropriate and cotton was soon deleted from the crop rotation. It should have beenforeseenthat groundnuts would not do well in the clay soils, and information should have been available about the problem of ‘rust’, and about the problem of ‘shattering’ associated with sesame.Rice was introduced to replacecotton despite the fact that rice had been rejected by the project appraisal team. Combine harvesters were bought to overcome the harvesting constraint. Maize was a low-value crop in relation to irrigation and farm machinery operating costs. This should have been apparent at an early stage of project planning had adequate enterprise gross margin and farm management analysis work been done. Crop yields were lessthan satisfactory, and yields per hectare did not reach the targets set at appraisal. The project could have been implemented as a settlement scheme with reliance placed on family labour for cropping and irrigation work, and on more appropriate technologies. In this situation those farmers already living in the project area perhaps need not have been evicted, incomes would have been directly created for farming families, foreign exchange neednot have beenspent on the investment and operating costs of tractors and rice combines, and irrigation and crop management labour problems might not have arisen. A settlement schememight also have given scopefor the production of a greater variety of crops, including fruits and vegetables, grown under more intensive farming conditions. Two and one half years after appraisal the project was in a cost over-run position. This was not due to delays in reaching the point of loan effectiveness; rather it was due to rising world prices (especially for petroleum products) allied to the fact that an overall contingency allowance of nine per cent was inadequate.Projects require realistic baseline castings, and should be assigned adequate physical and compounded price contingency allowances. The acceptanceof ‘assurances’from governments that they will meet all cost over-runs can be unsatisfactory, particularly when it is often known that, despite such assurances,some governments cannot (and know they cannot) raise the funding to meet such cost overruns. For the irrigation project it was impossible to make cost savings by
Experiences
with an irrigation
project
105
deleting a component, or by reducing the scale of the project. One possible compromise might have been the conversion of part of the project into a settlement scheme, thereby making possible some cost savings on farm machinery and fuel purchases. The government was at fault for not ensuring that land levelling work was carried out fully and properly. This should also have been insisted upon by the donor during supervision visits. No provision was made fcr subsequent annual land planing. Nothing was later done to alleviate the siltation problem in the irrigation channels and drains. The internationally recruited members of the management team were not appointed, and the project became over-staffed.The appointment of the three key staff should have been made a condition precedent to the first disbursement of donor funds. Once funds were committed to the project, little attention was paid to ensuring that such funds were used to the best advantage. Project planning work does not stop when funds are committed. Projects require adequate monitoring and supervision particularly by donor staff. Monitoring should be seenas a management aid. The objectives and targets set at appraisal should be followed, but if monitoring activities show up faults in project design (such as the absenceof equipment for land planing, or for clearing irrigation and drainage channels) then the case for modifications to the project design should be made, and financing adjustments should be put in hand to remedy the situation. REFERENCES 1. Akroyd, H. D. Policy priorities for agricultural development in Africa with particular reference to agricultural project planning, Agricultural Administration, 19(2) (1985), 101-13.
24 (1987) 99-105
Experiences and Observations Concerning the Implementation of an Irrigation Project* H. D. Akroyd ‘Weavers’,
1 Oaklands
(Received
Road, Groombridge,
23 December
Kent, Great Britain
1985; accepted 6 February
1986)
SUMMARY This pape; presents experiences gained in the implementation of an irrigation project in a tropical country. The project was set up as a 3000 hectare government farm. Problems which arose included cost escalation, failure to complete the land levelling requirement, the siltation of irrigation canals and drainage channels, farm machinery operating d@iculties, and shortages offield labour. As time passed the area under crops reduced. It is argued that the range of cropping options open to project management was restricted by the decision made to implement the project as a government farm. Some of the crops grown were not well suited to the farming environment of the project area. InsufJicient attention was paid to crop and labour planning, and to farm management jinancial analysis in the early stages of the planning process. The project might have met with more success had it been implemented as a settlement scheme. Here, farm machinery and labour problems would have been fewer, the limited need for imported machinery would have lowered foreign exchange costs, and the range of crops that could have been grown might have been larger. The importance of project monitoring and supervision by both government and donor is stressed.
BACKGROUND The irrigation project is located in a tropical country, and the soils of the project area are flood plain vertisols. The project area has a bi-modal * This paper Administration.
does not necessarily
represent
the views of the Overseas
Development
99 Agric. Admin. & Extension 0269-7475/87/$03.50 England, 1987. Printed in Great Britain
0 Elsevier Applied
Science Publishers
Ltd,
100
H. D. Akroyd TABLE Season Year One First rains Second rains Year Two First rains Second rains
1
Area A
Area B
Groundnuts Cotton
Maize Sesame
Maize Sesame
Groundnuts Cotton
rainfall pattern, and a river is close by which is used asa source of irrigation water. It is possible to grow two crops per year. The project feasibility study advocated the irrigated production of cotton, rice, and groundnuts on 3000 hectares of land, the fields being irrigated on a furrow system. The project was intended to be, at that stage,a settlement schemefor 750 families, the land being divided into fields of 36 hectares.Each family would be allocated four hectaresof land, two hectaresin each of two fields, so that 18 families would be responsible for the irrigation of 72 hectares. Subsequently, the project preparation report recommended a crop rotation of groundnuts, cotton, fallow, and rice to be implemented over successive two-year periods. At appraisal, the objectives of the project were defined as increasedfood self-reliance, import substitution for food, and the creation of new employment opportunities. At this time the settlement scheme proposal was dropped in favour of the establishment of a large-scale government farm which would employ hired labour. Farmers already living in the project area would be resettled elsewhere. Mechanisation of crop production was envisageddue to constraints imposed by the clay soils, and by the relatively short time available between the two growing seasons.The basic design, of fields of 36 hectares each, was retained. The main project investment costs were land clearance and levelling; irrigation and drainage works; farm machinery and equipment; and buildings. The project was to be financed by government and an external donor, with an investment period of four years.An overall contingency allowance of nine per cent was applied to project base costs. The project would be supervised by an Irrigation Agency, and a project management team would be appointed which would include three internationally recruited staff a Project Manager, a Field Manager, and an Irrigation Engineer. It was also suggestedat appraisal that the project area of 3000 hectares would be divided into two parts, each of which would be double cropped (Table 1). The plan would result in 1500 hectares of each crop in each year. Rice
Experiences
with an irrigation TABLE
2 Tonnes per hectare
Crop
Shelled groundnuts Cotton Maize Sesame
and fallow were grounds that the it would be too crop yields were
101
project
Year One
Year Four and On
1.3 1.2 1.5 0.5
1.7 2.0 2.5 0.8
deleted from the cropping plan. Rice was dropped on the crop had a high requirement for irrigation water, and that costly to control crop damage caused by birds. Projected as shown in Table 2.
PROJECT
IMPLEMENTATION
The project became loan effective eleven months after appraisal, and work then commenced on land clearance and on the construction of the main irrigation canal system. Both these tasks were completed. Some two and a half years after appraisal it was estimated that the foreign exchange costs of the project had increased by 153 per cent. This was attributed to rising costs of items of imported machinery, and to a sharp increase in the world prices of petroleum products. It was debated whether the cost over-run problem could be solved either by deleting some project components, or by reducing the scale of the project. Neither solution was deemed possible as all components were complementary, and as the clearance of the 3000 hectares, and the construction of the main irrigation canal system to serve that area, had already been completed. The government agreed to meet all cost over-runs. Despite the foregoing, the provision of land levelling and of subsidiary irrigation works was only completed for a cropping area of some 1600 hectares. Land levelling works were to be done by an external contractor. However, the target of 3000 hectares was not met because the machinery and equipment necessary for the work were sent away to another part of the country to do work of higher priority; the cost of the work to be done increased as time passed and the project lacked sufficient funds to get the job completed; and the contractor’s machinery and equipment eventually fell out of use due to lack of spare parts. When cropping commenced it became apparent that some 500 hectares of the 1600 hectares had been badly levelled due to a lack of appropriate
102
H. D. Akroyd
equipment at the time when the job was done, and becausethe work was done too quickly in order to bring the fields into production in the shortest possible time. As a result some fields had ‘high’ areas which the irrigation water could not reach. Subsequent farming operations without land planing gradually made the situation worse. Efforts were made in places to raise water-course levels in order to achieve command over ‘high’ areas. This has dangersas it can lead to increasedwater lossesthrough seepage,to the failure of water courses,to over-watering of ‘low’ areas,and to erosion at water outlets becausethe excessiveheadscause high water velocities at the structures, where lateral banks are broken, or where siphons are used. Some of the farm machinery bought for the project proved to be inappropriate for the environment, such as reversible mouldboard ploughs, rotavators, and low-powered tractors. Sixteen 35 horsepower tractors had to be sold, to be replaced with fewer though more powerful tractors. There was also a problem of poor machinery maintenance and a shortageof spare parts. After six years of cropping, much of the farm machinery was nonoperational. The position at the end of the sixth year of cropping was that half of the main irrigation canal system had never been used,and the half in use had a siltation problem. The quantity of silt carried in the river had increaseddue to drought in the upper catchment area. The silt clogged the irrigation pumps, and resulted in heavy deposits in the headpool, main canal, and distributary canals. The drainage system was also silted, poorly maintained, and in parts was choked with weeds.The absenceof action to remedy the situation was attributed to staff shortages and lack of appropriate maintenance equipment. The international recruitment procedure specified at appraisal for the employment of three senior management staff was not followed, and a national of the country was employed as Project Manager. At the end of the sixth year of cropping the project employed some 200 permanent staff, one third of whom were in administrative positions. However, at the same time the project sufferedfrom a shortage of labour for the operation of the irrigation system. Hired workers were unwilling to put in long hours on irrigation work, and it proved almost impossible to keep labour in the fields for the recommended time required to complete each irrigation cycle. Problems were also experiencedin hiring seasonallabour for crop weeding and harvesting. To some extent these difficulties were due to the facts that there were no schools, shops, or markets close to the project site; also, most of the workers lived in a town some distance from the project site. The maximum annual area cropped in the first six years was 1650 hectares.By the sixth year the cropping area had fallen to a little over 800
Experiences
with an irrigation
project
103
hectares.This was mainly due to irrigation and farm machinery problems, but also due to farm labour problems. In the first year of crop production 36 hectaresof cotton were grown, but thereafter no cotton was produced due to a shortage of labour for picking the crop. Despite the findings of the appraisal report, rice was then introduced into the crop rotation to replace cotton, with combine harvesting adopted to overcome the labour constraint at harvest time. The results of six years’ work showed that rice yields of 1.9 tonnes per hectare were possible, but casual labour for weeding was scarce and the crop suffered from the depradations of birds and rats. At one point, no proprietary rat poisons were available in the country for several months. On another occasion, two varieties of rice seed were accidentally mixed (having different maturity dates)which gave rise to harvesting problems. In general, the purity of the available rice seedwas unsatisfactory. Yields of sesame never exceeded 0.5 tonne per hectare, and problems were experienced at harvest times due to ‘shattering’. Groundnuts were grown for three years. However, the crop failed as it was not well suited to the clay soils of the project area, and it suffered badly from the incidence of ‘rust’ (Puccinia arachidis). The Ministry of Agriculture then recommended that groundnuts be no longer produced at the project. Maize yields reached 2.2 tonnes per hectare in years of good rainfall and good crop management. However, maize was a low value crop in relation to irrigation and machinery operating costs. OBSERVATIONS With the benefit of hindsight and the development of agricultural project planning methodology, it is easy to claim that the objectives of the project were ill-defined. This is a common problem with agricultural projects in less developed countries.’ The desire for increasedfood self-reliance,and for an improvement in the national balance of trade are commendable objectives. The wish to create new employment opportunities needs more consideration. On the one hand, the project employed too many permanent staff, one-third of whom were occupied with administrative work; on the other hand, the project sufferedfrom shortagesof irrigation labour, and of seasonal cropping labour, which should have been foreseen.No mention was made at appraisal of other possible objectives, such as a wish to achieve a more equitable distribution of income (albeit in a small way) or for the need for equitable regional development. It was decided at appraisal that the project objectives would be met by the creation of a large-scale mechanised government farm. Scarce foreign
104
H. D. Akroyd
exchangewas required to buy farm machinery (some of which proved to be inappropriate for the project environment) and to keep the machinery in operation. Problems arose concerning the maintenance of the machinery and the provision of spare parts, and farm labour was hard to find. Insufficient attention had been paid at appraisal to labour planning on a month by month or task by task basis, or to the provision of housing and amenities for farm workers. It would appear that the decision to set up a government farm restricted the choice of crops that could be grown at the project ‘site. Some crops proved to be inappropriate and cotton was soon deleted from the crop rotation. It should have beenforeseenthat groundnuts would not do well in the clay soils, and information should have been available about the problem of ‘rust’, and about the problem of ‘shattering’ associated with sesame.Rice was introduced to replacecotton despite the fact that rice had been rejected by the project appraisal team. Combine harvesters were bought to overcome the harvesting constraint. Maize was a low-value crop in relation to irrigation and farm machinery operating costs. This should have been apparent at an early stage of project planning had adequate enterprise gross margin and farm management analysis work been done. Crop yields were lessthan satisfactory, and yields per hectare did not reach the targets set at appraisal. The project could have been implemented as a settlement scheme with reliance placed on family labour for cropping and irrigation work, and on more appropriate technologies. In this situation those farmers already living in the project area perhaps need not have been evicted, incomes would have been directly created for farming families, foreign exchange neednot have beenspent on the investment and operating costs of tractors and rice combines, and irrigation and crop management labour problems might not have arisen. A settlement schememight also have given scopefor the production of a greater variety of crops, including fruits and vegetables, grown under more intensive farming conditions. Two and one half years after appraisal the project was in a cost over-run position. This was not due to delays in reaching the point of loan effectiveness; rather it was due to rising world prices (especially for petroleum products) allied to the fact that an overall contingency allowance of nine per cent was inadequate.Projects require realistic baseline castings, and should be assigned adequate physical and compounded price contingency allowances. The acceptanceof ‘assurances’from governments that they will meet all cost over-runs can be unsatisfactory, particularly when it is often known that, despite such assurances,some governments cannot (and know they cannot) raise the funding to meet such cost overruns. For the irrigation project it was impossible to make cost savings by
Experiences
with an irrigation
project
105
deleting a component, or by reducing the scale of the project. One possible compromise might have been the conversion of part of the project into a settlement scheme, thereby making possible some cost savings on farm machinery and fuel purchases. The government was at fault for not ensuring that land levelling work was carried out fully and properly. This should also have been insisted upon by the donor during supervision visits. No provision was made fcr subsequent annual land planing. Nothing was later done to alleviate the siltation problem in the irrigation channels and drains. The internationally recruited members of the management team were not appointed, and the project became over-staffed.The appointment of the three key staff should have been made a condition precedent to the first disbursement of donor funds. Once funds were committed to the project, little attention was paid to ensuring that such funds were used to the best advantage. Project planning work does not stop when funds are committed. Projects require adequate monitoring and supervision particularly by donor staff. Monitoring should be seenas a management aid. The objectives and targets set at appraisal should be followed, but if monitoring activities show up faults in project design (such as the absenceof equipment for land planing, or for clearing irrigation and drainage channels) then the case for modifications to the project design should be made, and financing adjustments should be put in hand to remedy the situation. REFERENCES 1. Akroyd, H. D. Policy priorities for agricultural development in Africa with particular reference to agricultural project planning, Agricultural Administration, 19(2) (1985), 101-13.