Update on Mexico

During the past six months I had the opportunity to be the host for three visits of country delegations that came to visit Mexico and its turnover program. The irrigation systems we visited included: Upper Lerma River in the central part of Mexico; Yaqui and Mayo River valleys in the State of Sonora ; and El Carrizo, El Fuerte, Guasave and Culiacan Valley in the State of Sinaloa. Both states are located on the northwest coast ofMexico.

Among the participants I will mention:

From Sri Lanka:

• Hon. M.Sirisena, Deputy Minister for Irrigation
• Mr. Thurairajaretnam, Additional Secretary
• Mr. Wijesooriya, Director General of Irrigation ;

From Nepal:

• Mr. Y.L. Vaidya, Director General, Dept. of Irrigation
• Dr. K.R. Sharma, Chief, Research and Technology Development Branch
• Mr. S.P. Rajbhandari, Chief, System Management Branch

From Pakistan:

• Mr. Shafqat Masood,Project Director, Second SCARP Transition Project
• Mr. Mohammad Ashraff, Director, On-farm Water Management
• Mr. Muhammad Qureshi, Consultant to Second SCARP Transition Project

Highlights

Highlights from the study tours and my personal remarks on the associations' performance are summarized below.

O & M cost recovery

In spite of a high inflation rate in 1996 and some water scarcity problems, all associations seem to be doing well financially. Lerma has increased water fees by 35% and others have paid additional fees to compensate for scarcity conditions (since the associations' are paid by farmers for each water delivery, and scarcity of water available translates into less income for the associations).

Social & political aspects

Elections of the associations' Board of Directors members have been achieved democratically and peacefully. Some ejidatarios (former land tenants) are now Association Presidents. I was very pleased to see that a new kind of leadership has arisen among the farming community.

Water rights

All associations seem to be struggling with the National Water Commission (NWC) about what they consider their legitimate water rights. Without a clear knowledge of what their water rights are, the Associations will not be able to consolidate themselves as sound private organizations.

Maintenance

Most of the associations have purchased new machinery, in addition to that provided by the NWC during the Turnover. They have done this either with their own funds, collected from annual water fees, or by borrowing money from local banks. When funds have been lacking because of water scarcity conditions, both the Federal and State level Governments have provided subsidies for the maintenance programs to continue on schedule.

Observations on Specific Systems

Upper Lerma River

Three different Associations were visited during the study tours: Valle, Corralejo, and Cortazar. Relevant aspects about each of them are as follows :

Valle WUA

The irrigated area is 13,677 hectares (ha) with 2,309users, 77% of them belonging to the ejido sector. The Board of Directors is heavily involved in the WUA's operational aspects; thus they have not hired a Manager, as most WUA's in the country have done. They have organized a parallel enterprise which has been dealing with agricultural inputs for WUA members (seeds, fertilizers, etc.). Although so far they are doing well, there is a danger that in their enthusiasm for business-related issues, the WUA might neglect its original function of carrying out irrigation O & M. 

Cortazar WUA

With an irrigated area of 18,448 ha this is the largest Module in the District. 69% of the users belong to the ejido sector. From the total water fee collected, 26.8% is delivered to NWC to operate and maintain the headworks and main network. From the share they retain, 66% is devoted to maintenance programs within the Module. During the last two years they have purchased, with their own money, machinery worth US$ 150,000 and also their own offices worth another US$ 50,000.

Corralejo WUA

This is the smallest of the three we visited with only 1,516 ha. I wanted the Nepalis to see how these people, 96% of them ejidatarios with very small farm plots, have managed to pay a water fee equivalent to US$ 180/ha/year (2.5 times what the rest of the Modules are now paying, the reason being that hey pump 50% of their water requirement and still earn a net benefit of more than US$ 4,000/year. 

Yaqui Valley

Here we visited a Users' Federation which provides services to 42 WUA's (232,938 ha). When the Yaqui valley was transferred to the users they wanted to stick to the old command areas already inexistence with an average irrigated area of 2,000 ha. As they now have understood the economics of scale of the Turnover process they have been ``compacting" the original WUA's in such a way as to have no more than 20 (out of 51) by 1998. Thus the average size of WUA's will be in the order of 11,000 ha/each. 

El Carrizo Valley

This District was transferred in 1991 to four WUAs. The largest module is 13,586 ha and the smallest one is 8,148 ha. 90% of the users belong to the ejido sector. We visited the smallest one and found out that not only is it 100% self-reliant, but also that it is involved in at least three modernization programs under the supervision of IMTA (Mexican Institute for Water Technology):

Farm irrigation improvement in 70 ha through a buried PVC pipe network

Irrigation scheduling in real time by using automatic agro-meteorological stations which have been installed throughout the District

Sub-surface drainage at farm level using perforated buried small diameter PVC pipe (more than 200 ha at a US$ 500/ha investment cost).

El Fuerte River Valley

With 236,231 ha of irrigated surface area, this system is the second largest in the country. The irrigation district was transferred during 1992-93 to 11 WUA's. We visited the Santa Rosa WUA. This Module is the largest in the District (34,316 ha) and second largest in the whole country. Santa Rosa is the classic example of a very successful and modern association: from 1992 to 1995 they irrigated an average of 42,207ha (23% extra double-cropping) at the same time reducing water used by as much as 20%. Sugar cane, a high-water demand crop, is grown on 21% of the irrigated land; 19% is corn which is also a high-water demand crop in this region; and another 21% are vegetables which are also high-water demand crops! Thus, reduction in water use in the Module is mostly due, in my opinion, to better performance in regard to the distribution of water along the secondary canal network.

O & M cost recovery is 100% but last year, as the Association needed to replace 11 pick-up trucks for O & M activities, they got the users to agree to pay an extra fee of US $10/ha/year to obtain the necessary funds for directly purchasing them from local dealers.

Guasave Irrigation District

This 100,025 ha irrigation district was transferred to five WUA's in 1992. All the Modules are larger than 10,000 ha, Bamoa being the largest with an irrigated surface area of 28,522 ha. During the 1995-1996 irrigation season, the transferred District had to face a somewhat bizarre situation: for the first time in more than 20 years, water availability was only 60% of the normal level. The users then decided to grow crops on the entire area (which meant 45,000 ha above of what should be allowed according to volume availability at reservoir level),collected a compensation fee of US$ 12.00/ha and self-financed an emergency-investment program in order to re-use as much run-off water as possible from the open ditch drainage system.

The results were remarkable: with a total investment of US$ 1.30 million they could get an output production value of US$ 82.0 million which, under ``normal" circumstances, (i.e., a government managed system) would not have been achieved. I consider this a valid example of Turnover's benefits in Mexico, since, for the first time, the WUA's demonstrated what they are capable of when subjected to real life stress.

- Jose Trava, Mexico

Jose Trava
Constitucion 13-C
Col. Escandon
Mexico, D.F., CP.11800, Mexico
Fax: (52)-5-515-4404
email: jtrava@infosel.net.mx