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Much has been written about the chronic problem of drought in the
Sertiio, the semi-arid portion of the Brazilian north-east. This
region, which falls within the same climatic zone as Africas Sahel,
differs in that it happens to be within a much bigger country which
also encompasses relatively rich regions, so that a great deal of
finance has been available to support efforts at reducing the North-
South dichotomy in general, and mitigating the impact of droughts
in particular.
Government policy may be said to have been pursued in two
phases: the first, up to the mid-l970s, centred upon the construction
of very large public dams, together with a much larger number of
smaller private dams; and the second, still being pursued, focusing
more directly on irrigation. Both phases have been based on the
provision of water, and may be described as hydrological solutions
to the problem of drought. The ostensible purposes are the same in
both cases, to reduce poverty and vulnerability to drought, and thus
to stem rural-urban migration within, and especially outside, the
region. Evidence and argument is presented here that neither policy
was or is well designed to achieve the purported aims, being based on
inadequate appraisal and understanding of the rural economy of the
Sertiio.
Development and Change (SAGE, London, Newbury Park and New Delhi), Vol. 20
(1989),461-500.
P
Mean
annual
capacity
TOTAL built
(No ) (000m) (000m)
Total I2 172,643 61 6.663.672 5 0 612.835 38 2,445.467 32 854,649 32 662.509 23 56.725 II 18.854 4 79.116 263
Percentage
of capacity I .5 57.6 5.3 21.1 7.4 5.7 0.5 0.2 0.7
Mean size
of dam (000 m)
Mean Proportion
annual of toial
Rio Crande Mmac capacity built by
Piaui Ceara do Norte Paraiba Pernarnbuco Bahia Alagoas Sergtpe Cerair Total built DNOCS
( N o . ) (OOOrn?) (No.) (000111~)(No.) (OOOrn) (No.) (oOornJ) ( N o . ) (OOOrn) ( N o . ) (OOOrn) ( N O . ) (mrn) I O O O ~ ) (%)
~ - - - - - -
1898-9 -
1-9 - - - - - - -
1910-19 13 8.677 6 1.738 2 1.063 - 3 419 I 1.897 1,190 4.9
1920-9 8 15.236 - 2 936 - - 16.172 1.617 5.8
1930.9 101 175,970 4 2,122 3 12.584 2 38.508 2 1.561 23 1,545 2,315 I .8
1940-9 I25 295.398 18 44.379 16 26.588 3 3.458 2 2.385 372.208 3.722 4.5
1950-9 I05 276.769 31 48.226 23 33,497 6 8.513 I2 16.161 383.166 3.832 I.o
Iw - 4 77 194,590 4 4.2% I2 32,203 - I 3,182 234.271 4.685 0.5
1%5-9 II 21.798 - I 524 - - 22.322 4.464
~ -
1970-4 (last year) (last year) (last year) (last year) (last year)
1x7 1961 1%5 1957 I%3
1975-9
1980-1
Total
Percentage
of capacity ~ 17 7 79 8.4 4.0 1.9 - 0.1 - Ion
Mean size of
dam (OOO rn) 2.141
Source: as Table I
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertclo 465
1970 2 20 10
1971 2 54 27
1972 5 197 39
1973 8 450 56
1974 8 518 65
1975 12 810 68
1976 13 1403 I08
1977 18 1885 I05
1978 18 21 18 118
1979 18 241 1 134
1980 18 2482 138
1981 19 2618 138
1982 19 2703 142
1983 19 2690 I42
1984 (planned) 19 2865 151
plus. Despite this fact, large owners have - in the case of the
Jaguaribe, and no doubt more widely - made difficult, or actually
prevented, the expropriation of land for development schemes. The
construction of public works for avoiding flooding and salinization
were similarly obstructed. For whatever reasons, the present level of
utilization of the rivers for irrigation purposes is minimal and
cannot be used to justify historical investments in the dams.
It will be argued later that a much higher-return use of scarce
water would be for livestock rather than crops. In fact, if we take the
example of the 3rd Directorate, covering Pernambuco, Paraiba and
Rio Grande do Norte States, there was in 1983 an average number of
some 500 cattle per dam, no more than could be serviced by a
relatively small dam, and a further 150-200 livestock units in the
form of sheep and goats (1,000 animals). One may conclude that the
overwhelming proportion of water stored in large public dams such
as these has zero productivity in terms of the maintenance of
livestock. Quantities needed for watering animals at any given time
are very small, of course; the rationale for storage is that some water
is made available in 'dry' months when other drinking sources have
dried up.
It is likely, indeed, that losses of potential pasture in those areas
now occupied by water surfaces imply a substantial net loss in main-
tained livestock, just as it has been argued that, despite irrigation,
there has been a net loss to cultivation.
The basic reason for minimal livestock usage of the public dams
is, of course, that livestock-raising requires large numbers of dis-
persed water sources, particularly in the case of sheep and goats,
which are closely tied to the rural household. Even in respect of
cattle it is desirable for the livestock owner to have water supplies
attached to his own land-holding, even if access exists to natural or
supplementary water sources provided communally within not too
great a distance. Even as a drought reserve, large public dams are
scarcely relevant for the maintenance of livestock throughout the
agricultural sector because of this distance factor.
Leaving aside river regulation, already discussed, stored water
can be used to irrigate crops, to water livestock or to supply people.'
We can turn now to the situation with respect to this third use. Lack
of water for domestic purposes, even for short periods, is serious:
prolonged scarcity affects the quality of life in rural areas in a major
way, and might well act as a factor in the decision to out-migrate
alongside loss of cash income and food supply during drought.
468 I. Livingstone and M . Assunco
amazon wells, and dug water holes (in rivers and rivulets); small
and medium dams; and, to a lesser extent, tubewells. The advantage
of river water holes, barrows and amazonas was obvious: they were
generally within 200-300 m of the household, compared with on
average 1 km or more in the case of small dams and tubewells. The
extent to which small dams are used is perhaps surprising: if some of
the vast dams (mean capacity 44 million m3 in Table 1) failed to
survive the worst year of the recent drought, 1983, it is clearly
unlikely that small dams of 30,000-50,000m3would be of much use
for between-year storage. Their value is clearly in extending the
availability of water in any given year into the dry-season period.
When households were asked to specify their principal sources of
water to satisfy the three needs of human drinking, other domestic
use and livestock use, the three main sources were shown t o be
amazonas, barrows and small/medium dams, with DNOCS and
other large dams providing a negligible proportion, even for
livestock.
The implication is that access to water for all these basic purposes
would have been very much wider had only a portion of the vast
financial and technical resources devoted over such a long period to
large dams been focused instead on extending the availability of
these more popular sources.
Given the inaccessibility of the large public dams and the dis-
advantages of small dams (quality of water for human consump-
tion, drying up in drought years and in dry seasons), there are
obvious advantages in tubewells, subject to technical feasibility and
cost. Interesting reference may be made here to an early diagnosis
of the problems of the SertBo, and their remedy, by the famous
agronomist RenC Dumont in 1961, who asked:
But has the problem of the SertBo been seriously put? Two Frenchmen,
hydrological specialists, Stretta and Taltasse, have demonstrated that over two
thirds of this immense region (as big as France . . .) the crystalline rocks are
impermeable and that there is therefore no hope of finding underground water.
The useful SertHo therefore is reduced to a small fraction of the sedimentary
areas and it is obviously there that one should concentrate the search for deep
underground water. Dams, yes! - but underground ones . . . why squander so
much money - since national resources are modest - in maintaining such a
large population in one of those rare parts of Brazil which cannot allow it to live
adequately on a regular basis, when everywhere else the development potentials
are as manifest as is their underpopulation? A rational solution for the SertBo? If
one is willing to put aside emotions and interests, it would be, quite clearly, to
evacuate it and to limit its exploitation to the good years, a bit like our mountain
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertcio 47 1
This diagnosis was valid only in respect of large dams. In fact much
more underground water exists than Dumont supposed, and it has
proved possible t o develop quite a network of tubewells throughout
the SertBo, with potential for further development.
Both quality and quantity of water available from tubewells is
important. Table 4 offers recent data for two states, Paraiba and
Pernambuco. This indicates that in the crystalline areas of
Pernambuco 76 per cent of wells are without residual, and 84 per
cent are good or tolerable. In Paraiba the proportions are lower,
but overall the figures are 7 1 per cent in crystalline areas and 90 per
cent in non-crystalline areas. What is critical also, in cost-benefit
terms, is the level of water flow obtainable from the wells. It can be
assumed that the flow in the non-crystalline alluvial areas is good.
This is shown for three States in Table 5 to average 11.93 l/min. The
flow in the crystalline areas is low in Paraiba and Rio Grande d o
Norte, but overall comes to 46 per cent of that in non-crystalline
areas. While this will make tubewell water at least twice as expensive
in crystalline areas, it may be, of course, more than twice as valu-
able, given the scarcity of water in those areas. As it happens, con-
struction costs in sedimentary rock are twice as high, due to the need
t o line the wells. Certainly water is available in the crystalline areas,
at a price. A criticism of the reliance on wells has been made by
Coelho, writing in the Dicirio de Pernambuco (May 1984), on
grounds that some of the wells are disactivated, some do not have
proper water for consumption or irrigation (because of
salinization). The fact that a fraction of wells become disactivated is
not itself conclusive. Another fraction of drillings for water will be
unsuccessful also. This will raise average development costs per
effective well. What is important is the size of that fraction and the
extent, therefore, to which average costs are raised. The data in
Table 4 d o not lead one to expect that a disproportionate number of
wells would prove unviable. A SUDENE official asserted to the
authors in 1984 a 90 per cent success rate with tubewells.
In summary, the two modes of water provision which have failed
to reach any significant fractions of the population are the large
DNOCS public dams and the large private (often subsidized) dams.
Otherwise small dams, tubewells, amazonas and barreiros have all
contributed to overall water provision and should be considered as
Table 4. Distribution of Wells by Quality of Water, Crystalline P
and Non-crystaline Areas, in Parai3a and 4
h)
Pernambuco States, 1983
Paraiba
Wells suitable for No. 460 15 38 1 40 20 4 396 24
non-crystalline areas Vo 100 3 83 9 4 1 86 5
Wells suitable for No. 1,585 483 304 213 423 I62 787 585
crystalline areas To 100 30 19 13 21 10 50 37
(Fendes)
Pernambuco .+
Wells suitable for No. 641 417 179 21 18 6 596 24 g
non-crystalline areas Vo 100 65 28 3 3 1 93 4 3
Wells suitable for No. 2,747 2,088 216 174 212 51 2,304
269 3
crystalline areas To 100 76 8 6 8 2 84 10
5
(0
Total, both States Q
Wells suitable for No. 1,101 432 560 61 38 10 992 48
non-crystalline areas Vo 100 39 51 6 3 1 90 4
Wells suitable for No. 4,332 2,571 520 387 635 219 3.091 854 is
crystalline areas Vo 100 59 12 9 15 5 71 20 L
3
E
Source: SUDENE unpublished survey data. 3
r,
Note: Quality measured by mg/l of solid residual, mainly salt. H. Schoeller classification is: up to 500 mg good; 500 lo 1000 tolerable; 1000to 2000
mediocre; 2000 to 4000 bad; 4000 to 8000 barely potable.
2
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 473
Wellssuitablefor
non-crystallineareos
No. of wells 460 64 1 1.828 2,929
Total estimated flow
of water 7,942.1 8,462.2 18,533.2 34,937.5
Mean flow per well (11s) 17.3 13.2 10.1 11.93
Wellssuitablefor
crystalline areos (Fendes)
No. of wells 1,585 2,747 537 4,869
Total estimated flow
of water 6,147.9 18,542.3 1,820.4 26,5 10.6
Mean flow per well (l/s) 3.88 6.75 3.39 5.44
Mean flow as percentage
of that for non-
crystalline areas 22 51 34 46
Source: as Table 4.
Some of the reasons for building large public dams, despite their low
degree of utilization, have been hinted at by other authors: the
dominant role of engineers and technical experts rather than
economists or sociologists; the political and financial interests
which have benefited directly from the dam construction; the
474 I. Livingstone and M . Assuncdo
The optimum size may not be the largest, whatever its technical
advantages. In turn, in order to identify the specific benefits, we
need to know the precise objectives of the water stored and the uses
t o which it is to be applied (cf. Hazlewood and Livingstone, 1981).
We have already referred to the vazantes, areas of flood recession
irrigation, attached to the dams. In good years it is possible to obtain
two crops, one rain-fed and one following flood recession. The
flood recession areas have been interplanted with elephant or other
grass for livestock and sweet potatoes for subsistence, particularly
by small farmers. Larger landowners are interested especially in
producing grass for cattle fodder, cattle representing their main
commercial activity. In many cases the main benefit secured by
landowners is that from leasing the flood recession land to renters
and sharecroppers: which would have certainly not been adequate
compensation had the full cost of construction been borne by the
landowner. In Rio Grande do Norte some 30 per cent of private
dams are said to have sharecroppers. A useful further benefit in the
case of a great many dams has been the introduction of fish. The
DNOCS official report of 1981 mentions the distribution of fish by
that time to 1,254 separate dams.
But the reason why small and medium dams pay private owners
and large, public dams d o not pay is, quite simply, livestock. This is
the main commercial activity, as just stated, of the large owners. A
small or medium-sized dam may not offer across-year security. If it
does not, it may nevertheless (a) provide within- year supply and (b)
permit an extension of water availability further into the dry season
(especially in bad years), reducing the distance which livestock need
to travel for water, and allowing more effective use of pasture in
average years: thus permitting a more substantial herd to be built up
and maintained. Benefits do not arise simply out of coping with the
worst year, and water investment which focuses on that one objec-
tive is therefore not necessarily the most cost-effective. It should be
noted here that other possibilities exist for coping with the worst
year: the use of cactus (of certain types) for fodder (compensating
for pastures no longer served by water). As regards water provision,
wells may constitute a better form of insurance for really bad years.
Given the very real advantages associated, therefore, with the
small/medium dam, there is an obvious issue as t o whether direct or
indirect (through cheap credit) subsidy for their construction should
be afforded to rich landowners maintaining cattle, especially in the
context of widespread poverty. A minimum policy recommendation
476 I. Livingstone and M. Assunqdo
(Coelho, 1982, referred to in Hall, 1983). This does not only mean
inflated salary costs for employees: nearly half of DNOCS scheme
investments is for assets which are not directly productive, such as
newly built staff houses, schools, roads, and household electrifica-
tion. The payroll alone is huge, however: in 1979 Cr. 817 million
compared with total gross farm output on the schemes of Cr. 304
million and net farm income above production costs of Cr. 103
million (Hall, 1983: 17) Ex-ante rate-of-return calculations carried
out by DNOCS for individual perimeters are generally not based on
very meaningful figures.2 They do not include the costs of dam
construction; therefore even if they were able to justify adding an
irrigation scheme, given the existence already of a dam, they could
not be used to justify the main investment involved. Considering
only the schemes themselves, an early investigation by Cline (1972)
of 47 schemes approved by GEIDA suggested that only 17 would
have a favourable cost-benefit ratio. As Hall points out (1983: 19)
no calculations have been made on the basis of actual performance
and costs of operating schemes.
Low rates of return can also be inferred from the incomes
accruing to farmers. Although these were planned to secure incomes
four or five times as great as previously, only a small proportion
have actually done so. About 20-50 per cent are said to be generally
in debt to the project, with most of the rest just making ends meet
(Hall, 1978: 82-5). Also indicative of earnings actually being made
are the inability of settlers to consider the purchase of their plots
from DNOCS (Noronha, 1980) in a substantial proportion of cases,
the frequent need by DNOCS to subsidize running costs quite sig-
nificantly and a high rate of farmer turnover, of perhaps 20-50 per
cent (Coelho;1982, quoted by Hall in his 1983 review).
If we ask why incomes obtained in the schemes are low for the
bulk of farmers, we need to go beyond the factor of scheme over-
manning, which would affect the economic (social) rate return to the
scheme but not farmers incomes, unless these costs were retrieved
from farmers. One can identify organizational factors, technical
factors and market factors. On the organizational side, despite the
number of scheme bureaucrats and other personnel, the level of
farmer training and extension offered is not adequate. As Hall notes
(1983: 17):
the new colonist receives a short training course of two weeks consisting of
lectures and practical demonstration. There is often a long delay, possibly a year
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertcio 487
or more, between this training and the time that a farmer takes up his plot, during
which such training may be rendered useless.
firstly that staple food crops will remain among the least attractive alternatives to
the commercially-motivated irrigator, and secondly that - under present world
market conditions at least - there may be no economic advantage in growing
them under irrigation in the region as compared with importing them.
could not possibly achieve much coverage of the target group who
are in greater need of support. However, as Hall (1983: 14) points
out, those absorbed on to the schemes are not the most vulnerable to
drought, viz. the sharecroppers from the caatinga, the drier areas
away from the valley floors who are strongly underrepresented on
projects compared with those from the more densely settled valley
floors where administrative costs of selection are lower.
If irrigation is adopted with a view to protecting as many people as
possible from the worst effects of drought, the sizes of irrigable land
allocated to each household have been excessive. Given the number
of families in need of crop insurance, 1-2 ha each, complemented
by a basic dryland cropping area, which is what is exclusively culti-
vated by most farmers at the moment, would have sufficed: in fact
the average area developed and allocated per family has been about
7 ha on both DNOCS and CODEVASF schemes, with about 5
ha in operation.
Given its conflict with considerations of economics, equity, man-
agement and, not discussed here, health, it seems unwise to be
planning a major emphasis on a strategy of irrigation for the future
development of the dry northeast.
Surprisingly, it appears that the area so far developed is just the
beginning. Plans were for a 169 per cent increase in hectarage from
1980 to 1985 and a further 92 per cent increase from 1985 to 1990.
The planned area for 1995 would be more than nine times that for
1980. Economics as such apart, the proposed rate of new develop-
ment of over 100,OOO ha a year over 1990-5 and 145,000 ha a year
over the period 1995-2000 flies in the face of an obvious managerial
constraint.
suitable for watering of small stock and the few cattle which may be
in the possession of the poorer households, rather than a few concen-
trated sources. Because of the distance factor, there are in effect
diseconomies of scale in relation to the size of dam, as well as,
because of the likelihood of drying up, economies of scale. More
investigation is needed of the most useful size of dam, in relation to
cost.
We may treat credit separately from dams and irrigation, the two
major components of policy so far discussed, because rural credit
has been an important element in itself. In fact, however, many of
the loans offered have been for hydrological purposes, whether for
wells or dams or for irrigation, and the special programmes have in
turn been centred to some extent on this credit. The credit pro-
gramme therefore reflects the deficiencies of the hydrological works
carried out. It has seriously aggravated the aspect of inequity, how-
ever, first because of the directing of substantial fractions of the
loans to relatively well-off farmers and secondly because of the large
unintended grant element produced by inflation on the real rates of
interest charged.
What would be the components of a positive programme? The
first thing would be to ensure that the measures adopted satisfy
certain essential criteria:
Land Tenure
Water Provision
The provision of water should nor have as a major aim the develop-
ment of irrigation, but should emphasize particularly domestic use
and livestock rather than crops. Where flooded areas or areas
around tubewells can be developed, this should be divided into
gardens to provide some security alongside their rain-fed plots for
the maximum number of farm families. Identification of
possibilities for small-scale irrigation at the local level should form
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 493
Crops
Livestock
NOTES
The authors are grateful lor financial support for the research on which this article is
based provided by ODAs Economic and Social Committee on Research, and in
Brazil by the Superintendency for the Development of the North-East (SUDENE)
and the CoordinaqBo de Aperfeicoarnento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES).
Advice o n technical issues was provided by Dr Michael Stocking.
1. What must obviously be treated as minor supplementary uses of reservoirs are
for stocking fish (compare the productivity of fish farming) and tourism (tourism is
minimal in the north east, despite the number of reservoirs created). In 1983 nearly
100 DNOCS dams (out of some 250) were stocked with fish, yielding almost 15,000
tons of fish. If we relate the value of the catch to the size of dams using reservoir
capacity as an index of size the latter figure is not so impressive. The value of output
per million cubic metres of reservoir capacity was on average only some 400 dollars.
This level of earnings would not make any significant difference to the rate of return
on investment in reservoir capacity.
2. For example, as calculated in Ministerio d o Interior, DNOCS, 3rd Regional
Directorate, Projeto Sumk, Paraiba, Hydro-agricultural Exploitation of Sumd
Public Dam, Recife.
REFERENCES