CCISR, St Raphael

In 1991, the Irrigation Block Commitee system was formed to allow the farmers in Nan Sipa to have more control over the resources needed to maintain the canal. The irrigation system comes from the River Bouyara, where it is captured and funneled into a central canal (which is 15.7 km long), which then empties into 19 secondary canals. Each secondary canal is divided into 3 tertiary canals, and each of those tertiary canals has 3 representatives of the farmers who use that water that serve on the 9-person committee for each block (a block is all the land supplied by a secondary canal). Each of the 19 committees sends 1
representatives to the central committee, and this is how the system is managed.

 

The committees collect contributions from the farmers every year (800 gourdes per hectare) so that they have funds to maintain the system and fix it if there are problems. There is also a surveillance committee (which is separate from the central committee) which is responsible for overseeing the expeditures that the committee makes and ensuring they are well-spent. There is also a small field team which regularly walks the perimeter of the irrigated fields to keep an eye on the system overall, and they are given a small fee. In general, when there are problems, the farmers who are affected call konbit to make the system work. When there is a conflict among

the farmers, the committee is supposed to mediate, and if it is too difficult to mediate, they bring it to the local authorities and the police. This system has been able to maintain the canals for the past 2 decades; 3,000 farmers have land irrigated by the system.