2. Evolution and expansion of mechanized irrigation in Bangladesh Aspiring to achieve food self-sufficiency, the government of Bangladesh initially heavily invested in agricultural mechanization (Hossain, 2009; Justice and Biggs, 2013; Mottaleb et al., 2017). During the early ‘green revolution’ of the 1960s, farmers were encouraged to cultivate dwarf rice varieties, apply fertilizer, and irrigation. To expand the irrigated area, the government first established centralized irrigation systems, from which the ground-water-based deep tube wells (DTWs) and surface-water-based low-lift pumps (LLPs) were supplied to farmers’ groups and cooperatives on rental basis. Until 1978, under the control of the BADC, the government also supplied fuel for pumping at a 75% subsidized rate (Hossain, 2009). By 1978, a total of 9000 DTWs and 35,000 LLPs were reportedly managed by BADC (iDE, 2012).
In the early 1980s, Bangladesh undertook market liberalization policies (Gisselquist et al., 2002; Justice and Biggs, 2013; Mottaleb et al., 2017). Earlier in 1970, in order to reduce the economic and operative burdens, in BADC began selling DTWs and LLPs to farmers’ cooperatives and individual farmers. Over time, the latter group became some of the original pump service providers (Hossain, 2009). The proliferation of pump sets used for irrigation in Bangladesh, however, accelerated in 1989, after the removal of several tariff and non-tariff barriers on the imports of agricultural machinery, including diesel engines. During that time, the ban on the imports of small horsepower engines and other agricultural machinery by the private sector, particularly from China, was removed (Justice and Biggs, 2013; Mottaleb et al., 2017). Restrictions of minimum distances between shallow tubewells (STWs) to limit over-abstraction were also abolished (Hossain, 2009). These actions accelerated the proliferation of the private-led small-scale irrigation system in Bangladesh. The shift to service provision for irrigation was also observed in other South Asian countries – particularly India – and more recently in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa where groundwater irrigation is feasible.
In 1982-83, Bangladesh relied on a mix of STWs, LLPs and DTWs to irrigate 1.52 million hectares of land. The total rice and wheat productions were 13.63 and 1.10 MMT, respectively. In contrast, in 2015–16, the irrigated area had increased nearly 5-fold to 5+ million hectares of land – with a more than 10-fold increase in irrigation pumps, particularly STW’s. Average cropping intensity (the number of crops harvested from the same land per year) reached 194% in 2017–18 (BBS, 2018b), with total rice, maize and wheat production in 2015–16 registered at 36.3, 3.02 and 1.09 MMT, respectively (BBS, 2019, 2018b; BRRI, 2019a). Bangladesh is now self-sufficient in rice production. Combined with increased economic growth, this has resulted in a decline in extreme poverty (Hossain, 2009).
With the expansion of groundwater abstraction, different forms of pump ownership and management have emerged. Chowdhury (2012) described five types of irrigation systems in Bangladesh, including (1) traditional methods (e.g., swing basket), (2) government-managed and centralized canal irrigation projects, and decentralized (3) LLPs, (4) STWs, and (5) DTWs. Initially, the government provided considerable subsidies to establish DTWs. At present, the establishment of DTWs is primarily private, with individuals and/or groups of farmers or cooperatives owning and managing DTWs command areas. In contrast, as a STW establishment is relatively less costly, most STWs are owned by individuals, relatives, and /or friends. Owners of STW pumps usually enter into informal contractual agreements with client-farmers for irrigation services, with the size of the command area determined by the engine capacity, as well as mutual agreements between client-farmers and service providers.
Different forms of irrigation water pricing and payment methods have subsequently emerged. Following the decentralization of BADC’s control over tube wells and LLPs, the primary payment method for irrigation water that emerged was the sharing of one-fourth of the crop harvested by farmers with pump owners. Payment methods have evolved over time towards different forms of monetary systems. These include cash payment per hour of pumping or a seasonal flat-rate basis depending on crop type. Payment methods and the amount of payment per hectare still vary greatly even within small geographic areas (Rahman et al., 2015), although volumetric pricing is rare (Krupnik et al., 2015).
3.1. Conceptual framework We hypothesize that irrigation water markets consisting of a pump owner and farmer-clients settle on an irrigation water payment method that tends to maximize the profit of the pump owner, while also minimizing farmers’ costs for purchasing irrigation services. These actors’ ability to achieve such a mutually agreeable equilibrium payment method is likely to be associated with the negotiation power of the pump owner and client-farmers, in addition to other environmental, market and exogenous factors. In a functional form, a mutually agreeable irrigation water payment method PMi * between pump owner (p) and client-farmers (f) can be represented as:
4.1. Study area and sampling This study is based on primary data collected from April 22 to June 8 in 2015 from 139 pump owners who provided irrigation services, and from 556 farmer-clients who purchased their irrigation services. In Bangladesh, dry season boro rice is the major irrigated crop, although some supplementary irrigation may also be provided to the summer/wet season Aus and Aman rice and other winter crops, such as wheat or maize (Krupnik et al., 2017; Qureshi et al., 2015). As the primary focus of this study is to examine the factors that affect the payment methods and amount of payment for irrigation services, we focus on the dry season boro rice farmers and the irrigation service providers (pump owners) in the completed 2013–14 season.
We focused on two prevailing smallholder irrigation systems: surface water irrigation using LLPs that are common in Barishal division, and ground-water extraction using STWs, which are more common in north and west (including Dhaka, Rangpur and Khulna divisions. Pump owners were randomly selected based lists of irrigation service providers supplied by the Department of Agricultural Extension. After selecting the pump owner, we requested them to supply the names of four client-farmers who purchased irrigation services in the 2013–14 winter season. Of 89 pump owners and their 356 clients, farmers were sampled from Barishal division, and a further 50 pump owners and 200 client-farmers were sampled from Dhaka, Khulna, and Rangpur divisions. The sample thereby covers four divisions, nine districts, 12 sub-districts, 15 unions, and 43 villages. According to BADC (2015), out of 1.63 million DWs, STWs and LLPs, 19.3% were electrically powered, with the remainder mainly reliant on diesel. In our sample, out of 139 irrigation schemes, only six used electricity, with the remainder using diesel.