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Government Policies towards Drought and

Development in the Brazilian SertPo

Ian Livingstone and Mhrcio AssunqHo

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.

1. ECONOMICS OF THE FIRST PHASE: THE


CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC DAMS AS AN ANTI-DROUGHT
STRATEGY IN THE SERTAO.

This policy, centred upon the construction of large public dams,


constructed through the medium of DNOCS (the National Depart-

Development and Change (SAGE, London, Newbury Park and New Delhi), Vol. 20
(1989),461-500.
P

Table 1. Public Dams Constructed by DNOCS,


13
I898-I981

Mean
annual
capacity
TOTAL built
(No ) (000m) (000m)

I8L)R-9 - I 267 i 267 134


1900-9 - 2 177.694 - - - 2 177.694 17,769
1910-19 4 12,924 I5 163.336 70 42.36 3 3.934 I 205 5 7.552 I I15 49 230,322 23,012
~
1920-9 4 I.RY7 19 192.816 5 42.21R 8 14.289 2 735 5 12.434 43 264,389 26.439
~
1930-9 6 670,432 6 138.611 x 405,236 6 51,085 3 28,537 I 3.731 I 824 31 1,298,463129,846
1944-9 I 54,Mx) I 4,571 I 720,000 - I 4.640 - - 4 783.811 78.381
1950-9 I 24,702 6 1.564.590 9 144,089 10 1,231,000 9 576,748 8 183,057 II 10,335 5 5.381 62 1.743.154 374.315 .+
1960-4 - 3 2,356.000 - 2 37,582 7 38,136 - 2 1.686 I 1,062 16 2,510,330502.066
1965-9 2 78.520 5 I.042.823 148,670 5 33.159 6 64.240 6 163.958 9 40,966 3 11.472 41 1.583.808 316.762
tcl
C.
- - - ~
1970-4 76.349 1 123.500 2 258.216 4 458.065 91.613
1975-9 12.350 - - 446,399 89,280 00
f
I 434.049 4
1980-I 3 57.361 8,292 8 - 2 4.1I 5 6

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)

Source. MINTER/UNOCS (1982)


Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertao 463

ment of Drought-related Works), is amazingly long-standing for a


programme which has brought few tangible benefits. There can be
no other major development programme in a developing country
which has been pursued so consistently and for such a long period
with so little success. Table 1 shows that the first public dam was
constructed in 1898-9, with major construction in the three decades
1910-39, and again in the 1950s and 1960s. In these last two decades
nearly 8,OOO million m3of capacity were constructed. Since that time
construction has continued at a reduced rate, the total accumulated
capacity by 1980-1 reaching more than 11,500million m3. The dams
were large, with a mean capacity of 44 million m3. A substantial
proportion of the total capacity, some 57 per cent, was concentrated
in Ceara State, and nearly 80 per cent in Ceara and Paraiba States
combined. If this was seen as the solution, therefore, it was applied
in an extremely uneven manner.
DNOCS also constructed a large number of private dams, par-
ticularly in Ceara State (Table 2). Although the mean size of dam
was naturally much smaller (just over 2 million m3), nearly 600
dams were constructed with a total capacity approaching 1,300
million m3. Given the evident difficulty here of private benefit being
funded at public cost, even if, as justification, some employment
creation was involved, this policy was abandoned earlier, in most
states by the mid-1960s and in Ceara by 1967.
Although early references by politicians to the possible use of the
public dams for irrigation exist, the first settlers on planned irriga-
tion schemes associated with the dams were installed only in 1970,
towards the end of the long history of public dam construction. The
idea of using the water available from public dams for irrigation
must thus be viewed very much as an afterthought, not associated
with the original decisions to invest and install capacity. It is
therefore legitimate to treat separately as two phases of policy the
building of large public reservoirs, up t o 1975, and the irrigation
development policy emerging from about this time or a bit earlier.
The number of settlers increased rather slowly between 1970 and
1975 (Table 3), after which it accelerated; but since 1984 the increase
has remained rather slow. The total for 1984, associated with 19
substantial public dams, was equivalent to numbers one would
expect on a single moderate-sized irrigation scheme. The mean
number of settlers per dam in 1984 was no more than 150.
4
Table 2. Private Dams Constructed by DNOCS, m
4
1912-67

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

Table 3. Evolution of the Number of Settled Irrigators


Associated with Public Dams, 1970-84

Year No. of dams with No. of Mean no. of


irrigators irrigators irrigators per dam

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

Source: Perimeter plan documents.

A different kind of irrigation, made possible through the con-


struction of dams, is the use of vazantes, areas of flood recession
around the edges of dams which may be utilized as the reservoirs dry
up. The use of these areas may make a significant difference to the
balance of costs and benefits of small and medium-sized dams where
the capital costs of construction are not so dominant: it would be
surprising if they were significant in relation to the very large public
dams, or included at all in the original cost-benefit calculations, if
such existed. This is clear from the fact that tenants were actually
prohibited from the areas of the large dams prior to 1970-2, after
which the authorities were under more pressure to demonstrate
some positive values associated with the dams. This led to some
increase and in the 3rd Directorate, for example, the position had
changed considerably in 1983, with over 5,000tenants around the 24
dams in that Directorate. The average area of the vazantes here was
just over 1 0 0 ha per dam, and % ha per tenant. The total of 2,600 ha,
however, could again be considered the equivalent of one standard
irrigation scheme, at most, and is minute in relation to the 24 major
dams involved. One might note further that the steep sides of many
of the larger dams make them less suited to the creation of vazantes.
While these first two types of benefit may be dismissed as quanti-
466 I. Livingstone and M . Assunp7o

tatively small, in respect of public dams, much wider potential bene-


fits might have been expected t o stem from a quite different objec-
tive, that of river regulation, through reduction of periodic flood
damage affecting large numbers of people along the length of the
rivers passing through the Sertiio: the most important one, the
Jaguaribe river, for example, flows through 12 municipios. Unlike
private dams, moreover, such benefits would accrue t o the down-
stream community as a whole. Benefits from river regulation could
also accrue to some extent from the watering of livestock as a result
of water being made available steadily thoughout the year, or in
months when otherwise a river would be dry. It will be suggested
later in the paper that the critical defect of the decision to concen-
trate new water resources in large dams was that it ignored the
enormous costs of transporting water. This is a significant potential
advantage where the objective is river regulation, as these costs
might be substantially avoided, the natural flow of the river being
relied upon.
With a regulated river there would appear to be more potential
also for private or public run-of-the-river irrigation. As it turns out
there is in general no run-of-the-river irrigation in the Sertiio. Water
needs to be pumped from the river bed. This means that irrigation is
available mostly only t o strip farms of 3-4 km in length along each
side of the river, of which only some 150 m of the most adjacent land
may be watered. This limits or eliminates the scope for transferring
population away from the overcrowded banks towards fertile soils
away from the river and for targeting the poorest groups. The need
for pumps means that additional investment is needed to realize
irrigation benefits beyond that associated with dam construction
itself. Water may also be raised from wells constructed in areas
alongside the river: again involving capital investment, however.
These requirements impose major economic and financial con-
straints on irrigation, which has put it beyond the means of the great
majority of farmers. This raises a question of equity, as well as
limiting the number of beneficiaries from regulation.
Perhaps the most fundamental limitation is that extensive sec-
tions of the rivers pass through areas used primarily for livestock or
exploited with only low intensity by large landowners. The size
distribution of land holdings in the municipios through which the
15 related river systems of the North SertZio pass is very similar to
that for North Sertiio as a whole, with 70-80 per cent of land in
holdings of 100 ha or more, and 40-50 per cent in holdings of 500 ha
Drought and Development in the Brazilian SertBo 467

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

Politicians may view failure of water supplies in urban areas as


having even more serious consequences: here it may be noted that in
1980 quite a large proportion of the population, 37 per cent in North
Sertlo, could be classified as urban (without including Fortaleza).
In the course of the decade from 1970 significant improvements
were made in the domestic provision of water throughout Brazil: but
whereas in the southeast the percentage of rural households still
without access to water from the general network or from a well or
spring had fallen from 55 per cent in 1970 to below 14 per cent in
1980, in the northeast the corresponding percentage had fallen only
from 95 to 62 per cent. In two states, Piaui and Rio Grande do
Norte, in 1980 it was still as high as 80 per cent.
The proportion of urban households in this position was substan-
tial in the northeast, at 25 per cent in 1980, but of a different order
from that in rural areas. Two separate aspects need to be considered,
therefore: the provision of urban water supplies and the provision of
water in rural areas. Appropriate sources and mechanisms of stor-
age and delivery of water may or may not be the same in the two
cases.
In fact dams are not the main vehicle for the provision of water
even in the case of towns. Thus in Ceara State only 25 out of 92
functioning water supply systems depended entirely on dams in
1983, a greater number depending on tubewells and a similar num-
ber merely on amazonas (wells). Even among the larger townships
exceeding 10,OOO in population, 7 out of 16 depended on dams
(though only 4 on dams alone) and 9 on either tubewells or ama-
zonas. In terms of population served only 27 per cent depended only
on dams, compared with over 50 per cent dependent principally on
tubewells. However the use of DNOCS dams for urban supplies is
even more limited than for dams in general: the DNOCS Annual
Report of 1981 (in its Table 3) shows that only 5 dams out of 263
were used for watersupplies to communities.
This dependence on tubewells even for urban water supplies is
surprising, again, given the vast number of substantial dams which
have been built. Once more the cost of transporting water from the
source to the point of use appears to be vital, and is thus a critical
omission in relation to the dam construction programme under-
taken in the northeast. Moreover, examination of information on 16
urban supply systems completed in Ceara State in 1983, affecting 19
townships, showed that only 5 townships were located 6 km or more
from the supply point, in all these cases a dam. The majority of
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertbo 469

townships were within 6 km of their water source, often within 2 km,


and tubewells, particularly (amazonas, a lagoon and a spring were
other sources), were more important than dams.
The implication of this is that it is not only in the cases of supply
for rural households and for watering livestock that distributed
water supplies are important: even with respect to urban supplies
concentration of water supply at a limited number of major sources
carries important disadvantages. It happens that in the Northern
Sert%othere is a large number of small townships, more than 200
out of 243 in 1980, in the range 2,000 to 10,000, distributed over all
5 states.
Large reservoirs could serve as a supply of last resort for urban, as
well as rural, water supply in periods of crisis: this could in principle
provide justification for dams even if normal situations did not
warrant the provision of large-scale storage. The stress we have
placed on the cost of transporting water appears well placed if we
consider the number of water tankers used to distribute water during
the last major drought, 1979-84. This was a substantial operation,
involving the use of more than 5,000 tankers in the peak year,
1983-4. It is noteworthy, however, that in that year the 30 million m3
of water distributed compared with an aggregate reservoir capacity
(not the actual water stored, it should be said) in the 5 states of North
Sert%oof some 9,700 million m3. If the dams were just one-third
full, emergency demand by tankers would amount to just 0.9 per
cent of this. If the dams were one-tenth full the demand by tankers in
the peak year would amount to only 9 per cent of the water stored. If
these quantities for 1983-4 represent the maximum that was eco-
nomic or financially feasible to deliver, such quantities would not
require volumes of storage anything like what has been made
available.
If urban centres are not principally served by the large public
dams, we should expect this to be even more true of rural house-
holds. In order t o obtain a clearer idea of how rural households in
the Serttio currently obtained their water supplies a sample of 277
households was taken, distributed across a range of municipios. The
small size of the sample should be stressed.
This confirmed that large dams were comparatively unimportant
as sources of household water, and stood out as by far the most
distant, at a mean of 6 km from the household, of all the sources,
except that the DNOCS-built dams were even further away, at a
mean distance of 8 km. The most important sources were barrows,
470 I. Livingstone and M . Assunqdo

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

residents do with the alpine meadows, as vast seasonal pastures (Dumont,


1961: 48).

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

Wells with residual (measured in mg/l)


No. of wells Wells 0- 1001- 2001- 7001or Totalgood Total bad
with flow without more or tolerable or worse
residual (nil-1000) (2001 or more)

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

Table 5 . Level of Water Flow from Tubewells in


Crystalline and Non-crystalline areas,
in PuraiBa, Pernumbuco and Rio
Grande do Norte. 1983

Paraiba Pernambuco Rio Grande Total, all


do Norte three States

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.

complementary. The subsidies and subsidized credit which have


been extensively provided over a long period have not contributed to
a widening of access to water. These need to be re-assessed but, more
importantly, public water development efforts, plans and equip-
ment must be re-oriented to ,provide a frontal assault on the require-
ments of the mass of ordinary rural households and keepers of small
stock, based on a combination of different small-scale modes capa-
ble of providing distributed water supplies to that population: ulti-
mately it is a matter of defining the proper goalof water provision in
the SertBo.

2. THE ECONOMICS OF PRIVATE DAMS

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

symbolic value of their reservoirs to politicians needing to demon-


strate their activity on behalf of the public.
A paradox to which, inexplicably, little or n o attention has been
paid, however, is why private dams should be constructed if they did
not bring actual direct benefit to the farmers or landowners for
whom they were built. Some of them were built using the owners
own private funds, even if many benefited from a major element of
State subsidy. A significant fraction was financed by private or State
banks, but using credit lines provided to special programmes by
government, and involving special terms, usually with negative real
rates of interest. Others have been built by direct government con-
struction using public funds as part of labour-intensive works
programmes, but on privateland, perhaps with some limited sort of
service to government or community expected in return. The num-
ber of private dams is extremely large. Hall (1978: 7) refers to thou-
sands of small, private reservoirs belonging to landowners and their
number appears to be increasing at a quite rapid rate. DNOCS
discontinued its policy of building dams for use by private land-
owners at the end of the 1960s, but by then had constructed nearly
600 (Table 2). Many of these were very substantial, as noted above,
the mean cubic capacity being more than 2 million m3. Whether
subsidized or not, and assisted by cheap credit or not, this large and
increasing number of dams would clearly not have been built if they
did not yield direct economic benefit to their owners, and substan-
tial benefit at that. This provides a curious point of contrast with the
large public dams, and makes the failure of the latter so much more
surprising. It is evident that the resources so obviously wasted in
constructing public dams could have been made available for much
more productive water investment.
We may ask, therefore, what has made the smaller, private dams
so useful, and the large public dams so useless? It should be noted,
first of all, that a major aim of the engineers in constructing public
dams of such vast size was to maintain sufficient storage capacity to
deal with between-year variations in rainfall, and beyond that, to
deal with the worst-possible drought event. We noted in the previous
section that even those large sizes were defeated by the 1983
drought, although they were adequate - given their lack of signifi-
cant use for irrigation, of course - to retain water in other years.
The greater utility of the smaller dams brings out the need to assess
the specific economic benefits associated with a given size of dam,
and in comparison with the costs of constructing a dam of this size.
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 47 5

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

would be for large owners to be charged a full market rate of inter-


est. More fundamentally it may be appropriate to concentrate con-
struction efforts and financial resources instead towards the provi-
sion of shared, community sources of water - whether small dams
or wells or even a larger number of small barrows, or some combina-
tion of these, so that these sources could contribute to the mainte-
nance of large numbers of small stock (or small-holdings of cattle)
and thus of large numbers of households. If the dams afford impor-
tant advantages to large farmers, they clearly do so also for groups
of smaller stock-owners. Construction of community dams need not
therefore be confined to times of declared emergency: they can
contribute to the development of small-scale mixed farming by aver-
age households. The opportunity cost of the resources which have
already been allocated, through subsidy, to water provision for
private landowners may be very great. For the future, a re-
orientation of planning priorities is clearly called for. One weakness
of community-built dams has been in construction, due to shortage
of water for compacting. If subsidy is to be provided for dam con-
struction this could be a more valid objective.
The popularity of dams among landowners and large farmers has
actually led to virtually uncontrolled proliferation of dams in some
areas, which raises a further issue. These may constitute a hazard,
particularly since, if a dam breaks in the rains, it may carry with it
another dam. Dams may also be constructed without regard as to
whether they restrict the supply of water to other properties. It is
surprising, therefore, that no licensing law of any kind controls
construction of such dams. This could be introduced within the
context of a more rational water resource development plan.

3. THE SPECIAL PROGRAMMES AND THE DISTRIBUTION


OF RURAL CREDIT IN THE NORTHEAST

From the mid-1970s policy changed significantly, with the adoption


of a more diversified approach incorporating a range of special
programmes.
The special programmes are so called because they are supposed
to comprise unusual and specially conceived measures to fit the
needs of northeast regional development, and particularly of the
semi-arid area. There are problems of definition here, however, as
some programmes which are of importance in the northeast are
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 477

actually constituent parts of national programmes, while some pro-


grammes are not confined to the semi-arid parts of the northeast.

1. The Irrigation Programme is referred to as a special pro-


gramme, though it is part of a national programme with its own
special plans for the semi-arid zone.
2. The Sertanejo Project (Special Programme for Supporting the
Development of the Semi-arid Region of the Northeast), initiated in
1976, aims at increasing the resistance of small and medium farms to
the effects of drought.
3. Prohidro (the Programme for the Use of Water Resources)
was created in September 1979, and provides public and private
water facilities for continuing economic activity during droughts.
4. Provarzeas (the National Programme for the Rational Use of
Irrigable Lowland) was set up in June 1981, and was really an exten-
sion to the whole country of a programme originating in Minas
Gerais in 1975.
5. Profir, the Financing Programme for the Acquisition of Irri-
gation Equipment, is again strictly a national programme, but is
worth listing here because of its close complementary with the other
programmes, which are obviously water- and irrigation-related.
6 . Polonordeste, the Development Programme for Integrated
Areas in the Northeast, was started in October 1974. It is designed
specifically for the Northeast but not particularly for thesemi-arid
part. It was supposed, indeed, to concentrate on the wetter and more
fertile areas, but progressively expanded its area of intervention to
cover a large part of the drier areas of the semi-arid subregion.
Sertanejo, Prohidro and Polonordeste all come under the Minis-
try of the Interior (MINTER), the ministry directly concerned with
the issue of regional imbalances. Provhrzeas and Profir, as national
programmes, are the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Together with the basic national irrigation programme, they con-
tribute to the new thrust of efforts in respect of the northeast prob-
lem, which centres upon irrigation. Whether these efforts are likely
to be successful in achieving the basic objectives must therefore
hinge on two things: whether irrigation is generally economic, and
whether a programme focusing on irrigation can have the coverage
necessary to reach the broad target group or groups in question.
7. The Emergency Programme, though part of a national pro-
gramme, is specially intended and designed for the semi-arid north-
east, and it is coordinated regionally. It should be distinguished
p.
4
m
Table 6 . Funds Allocated to Special Programmes, 1978-83
(Public Investment and Emergency Expenditure)

Million cruzeiros at constant 1983 prices* Total


1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 Mn. Cr. % Percentage
increase
1980-3
Polonordeste 74,324 30,678 46,415 41,154 78,965 78,210 275,423 16 + 69
Prohidro - - 35,501 12,487 28,020 34,121 110,129 6 -4
Sertanejo 9,541 6,864 17,901 13,515 12,480 1 1,979 62,739 4 - 33

Subtotal 83.865 37,542 99,817 67,156 1 19,465 124,310 448,29 I 26 + 25

Irrigation 64,321 49,506 53,061 62,517 91,630 82,521 339,236 20


TSA 2,872 3,734 1,671 1,613 1,672 903 9,600 0.6
Emergency 81 1 94,419 147,481 227,788 131,436 306,72 I 907,845 53

Total 151,869 185,201 302,036 359,174 344.203 514,455 1,704,972 100


Total US $ mn at
1983 average annual
exchange rate 256 312 510 606 581 868 2,878 -
Source: SUDENE, 1983 Report
*General Price Index, FGV.
Note: A part of Polonordeste and a small fraction of Emergency spending was made outside the semi-arid zone.
Drought and Development in the Brazilian SertiTo 479

from the rural development programmes above in that it is con-


cerned essentially with short-term employment relief during the
actual drought period.
8. The Semi-arid Tropic Research Programme (TSA) may also be
distinguished from the others, which are all direct action pro-
grammes involving the injection of substantial amounts of funding
into rural development. The TSA is a relatively small-scale research
programme aimed at providing appropriate technologies for the
semi-arid area. It is not confined to irrigation aspects, however, and
may prove to have a wider bearing on the problem in the long run.
9. One or two programmes have been organized by State govern-
ments, although the high degree of centralized control of funding
for northeastern development means that these are relatively small.

Table 6 gives some indication of the relative importance of the


various programmes in the course of the most recent major drought.
Spending on the Emergency programme was twice as important as
that on the three credit programmes taken together. Of the latter
Polonordeste is quantitatively easily the most important though, as
indicated, not all of the spending was within the drought area.
Although the Sertanejo project predates Prohidro, the latter rapidly
overtook it in terms of amounts disbursed. Polonordeste was initi-
ated in 1974, Sertanejo in 1976 and Prohidro in 1979, with the first
expenditures in 1980.
Leaving aside the Emergency Programme, these programmes
have between them involved:

1. A strong and increasing concentration on irrigation and other


hydrological projects.
2. A component of rural credit also directed towards water sup-
ply and t o a lesser extent assistance to livestock development other
than by water development.
3. Expenditure on public works, particularly of a hydrological
nature again, but also more general social expenditure.
4. Attempts at integrated rural development planning (IRDP)
incorporating the above, but also in Sertanejo particularly, agricul-
tural extension through the medium of nuclei of extension work-
ers. The programmes have ostensibly been aimed at the small or
small and medium producers, while the general rationale for inte-
grated rural development programmes is that a frontal approach
encompassing all groups is pursued.
Table 7 . The Distribution of Rural Credit in Pernambuco, 1983 P
!s
Mini- Small Medium Large Cooperatives Total
producers producers producers producers
Number of loans
Bank of Brazil No. 66,673 15,189 2, I80 985 22 85,049
To 78 18 3 I 0 100
Bank of the Northeast No. - 2,012 734 782 - 3,528
% - 57 21 22 - 100
State Bank of Pernambuco No. 4,575 1,152 534 319 - 6,444
% 69 17 8 6 - I00
Value of loans
Bank of Brazil US$OOo 32,089 17,029 14,030 26,536 2,010 91,694
% 35 19 15 29 2 100
Bank of the Northeast US$OOo - 1,267 1,521 14,709 - 17,498 .+
VO - 7 9 a4 -
-
loo 5
State Bank of Pernarnbuco US$Ooo 6,190 4,472 4,145 17.792 33,268
% 21 13 13 53 - 100 f
Total all banks vo 27 16 14 41 I .4 100 20
Mean value of loans D
Bank of Brazil US$ 48 I 1,121 6,436 26.940 91,360 - 9
Ratio I 56 -
Bank of the Northeast US$ - 630 2,074 18.810
E
-
- g
Ratio - I 30
State Bank of Pernambuco US$ 1,474 3.882 7,704 46,945 -
Ratio 1 32
z
Source: Projelo Nordesfe, Programma Esradualde Apoio 00 Pequetio Produtor Rural, CredifoRural, V I I-Anexo 1, Pro-Rural, State Govern-
ment of Pernambuco, Planning/Agricultural Secretariats. 3
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertao 48 1

However, while on paper the programmes were designed to deal,


as in the case of the large dams, with the general problems of
poverty, drought and outmigration in the northeast, in practice this
has not been the case in the implementation. The element of IRDP
has been quite weakly pursued, while rural credit has not been tar-
geted towards the most vulnerable producers but applied selectively
in a manner likely to have benefited only a better-off minority who
have enjoyed massive subsidy.
Although each programme had its own financial allocation for
rural credit, these funds were actually disbursed under the National
Rural Credit Scheme managed from above by the National Mone-
tary Council and implemented locally via branches of the Bank of
Brazil, the Bank of the North East and by State banks. Table 7
shows how credit was distributed in the case of one state,
Pernambuco, between large, medium, small and mini producers in
1983. If the aim were to support the poorest households for equity
reasons, and because these are the most vulnerable to drought,
concentration would have been on the smallest producers, the mini-
producers. Some attempt was made in this direction by the Bank of
Brazil, much less in the case of the remaining two. However,
although mini-producers received more than 70 per cent of the num-
ber of loans from the Bank of Brazil, their share of resources lent
was only 35 per cent, and for all three banks together just 27 per
cent, compared with 41 per cent for large producers. The latter
figures for 1981 were 23 and 44 per cent respectively, and for 1982
they were 24 and 48 per cent. The mean value of loans accorded by
the Bank of Brazil to large producers in 1983 was 56 times that for
mini-producers.
Examination of the data for loans through individual branches of
the Bank of Brazil (one for each municipio) brought out an inter-
esting feature: the lack of a consistent pattern in the distribution of
their credit. For example, while in 18 municipios no credit was
extended to large producers, in another 13 these obtained 40 per cent
or more of the loans, sometimes as much as 60 or 80 per cent. This
appears to suggest a lack of consistent policy or clear directive from
above, just as there is inconsistency between the overall policies
adopted by the Bank of Brazil and the Bank of the Northeast.
This maldistribution of credit has been observed by others.
Guimariies (1979: 308) stated that between 75 and 90 per cent of the
total value of rural credit is given to the medium and large-scale
landowners, who comprise no more than 6 per cent of proprietors.
482 I . Livingstone and M . Assunpjo

His estimate of credit allocation is incorporated into Table 8. Pinto


observes similarly that 80 per cent of the farmers are practically
excluded from the national rural credit system. However, the distri-
bution of subsidised credit among the other 20 per cent is itself very
unequal. One per cent of the group (about 10,OOO farmers) receive
about 40 per cent of the total amount of credit received by the group.

Table 8 . Agrarian Structure and Subsidized Rural


Credit in the Northeast of Brazil

Size of No of Total Planted Rural Subsidized


farm farms area area employment credit*
(ha) (70) (070) (070) (%) (To)

< 10 67.42 4.91 20.27 52.8s 0


10-100 26.31 22.41 35.57 31.24 10-25
> 100 6.10 12.62 44.16 15.91 75-90

Total 100 100 100 100 100

Source: FIBGE, Censo Agropecuario, 1980.


* Guirnaraes (1979: 308).
All the Special Programmes give a prominent position among
their objectives to the aim of assisting smallholders. Why this fails to
be put into practical effect may be illustrated with respect to
Sertanejo, one of the more egalitarian in its intent. The first stage is
that, in addition to the aim of assisting smallholders with holdings
smaller than 100 ha, there is the further aim of assisting also
medium-size producers with holdings of 100 up to 500 ha: allo-
cated 41 per cent of the credit in 1983. Secondly, the objective
ignores the fact that a large proportion of holdings within even the
first category are concentrated at the lower end of it, and unlikely to
have received any credit: 57 per cent of holdings in that category in
1980 were below 10 ha, and indeed were on average no more than
3 !h ha. The target population towards which Sertanejo was directed
did ostensibly include rural producers not working their own land,
including tenants, sharecroppers and squatters as well as landless
labourers but, in part again because of the hydrological emphasis,
these were essentially untouched by the programme.
The effect of uneven distribution of credit is much increased by
the major element of subsidy involved. Under Sertanejo investment
credits were offered at a 5 per cent nominal rate of interest, with a
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 483

6-year grace period and repayment over a further 20 or more years.


Since, during the course of 1984 for instance, the dollar value of the
cruzeiro fell by 69 per cent, the real rate of interest was negative, to
the extent of 69 per cent, effectively converting the loan into a grant.
Putting equity aside, from a purely practical point of view, negative
rates of interest of 50 or 60 per cent mean that the loans fund will be
rapidly run down, such rates having the same effect as low (real)
repayment of capital, so that eventually no-one will have the benefit
of credit.
To illustrate another way in which hyperinflation has distorted
nominal objectives of a programme, Provarzeas, the National Pro-
gramme for Rational Use of the Irrigable Lowlands, offered a
regional differential, charging 35 per cent in the northeast and 60
per cent elsewhere, with 3 years grace and 6 years repayment peri-
ods. However, even the nominal rate of interest of 60 per cent
charged outside the northeast would have represented a negative
real rate of interest of 50 per cent in 1983. Since the real rate for the
northeast is only a negative 58 per cent, the difference in nominal
rates is quite illusory, even if it would have served to make accept-
able the major imbalance in the quantities of finance actually allo-
cated between the two regions.

4. ECONOMICS OF THE SECOND PHASE: THE IRRIGATION


PROGRAMME

The second phase of government policy may be said to combine the


special programmes, which have exhibited a strong hydrological
bias, with the irrigation programme itself, which may now be
examined more closely.
References to the need for irrigation go back a long way.
Arrojado Lisboa, director of IOCS (Inspectorate for Anti-Drought
Works), the predecessor of DNOCS, from 1909 to 1912, stressed the
need for irrigation. Further references t o official statements refer-
ring to the need to make use of the stored water for irrigation
purposes were made in 1937 (Leittio, 1937: 38-41) and 1953 (Duque,
1953: 181-2) before the Furtado Mission of 1958.
Serious incorporation into on-the-ground plans, however, waited
until 1971, when the Executive Group for Irrigation for Agricultural
Development (GEIDA) published the Pluriannual Irrigation Pro-
gramme (PPI), the first systematic irrigation plan for Brazil, with a
484 I. Livingstone and M . Assungdo

very optimistic target for the northeast of 195,000 ha by 1980. The


hectarage associated with the 2,500 settled irrigators associated with
public dams in the northern Sert9.o in 1980 would have been of the
order of 17,000. The substantial implementation of that pro-
gramme, as already noted, dates from 1975. To be precise, three-
quarters of the financial resources used during the decade 197 1-80
were applied after 1975. The irrigation programme itself was
established under the First National Development Plan (1 972-4),
incorporating a target of 40,000 ha in the northeast, based on these
public irrigation schemes. Responsibility for their development was
entrusted to DNOCS and the S9o Francisco Valley Development
Company (CODEVASF), both bodies supervised by the Ministry of
the Interior (MINTER). The National Plan for Irrigation, 1982-6,
allocated 90 per cent of the irrigation budget to large official
schemes. Current proposals are for a major expansion of irrigated
area, putting irrigation at the centre of development efforts in the
northeast, as far as the allocation of financial resources to agricul-
ture are concerned: even though already over the period 1978-83
irrigation was absorbing about 40 per cent of the total rural develop-
ment budget in the northeast. It is vital, therefore, that experience
so far be properly assessed, t o discover whether (1) the schemes
contributed substantially to net employment creation in the rural
northeast; (2) the schemes have been technically and economically
effective, with a high economic rate of return, and this contributed
to the growth of output; and (3) the financial resources absorbed
into the schemes have been used in an equitable way, so that benefits
have been reasonably widely shared. The answers to these questions
will imply an answer to a fourth: have they contributed significantly
to protecting the rural population as a whole in the Sertgo from the
more catastrophic effects of drought? The evidence available, some
of which is now brought together here, is that the answer is no, in all
cases.
As far as employment creation is concerned, Hall (1983: 11) notes
that by mid-1981, after a decade of official spending, less than 10
per cent of the original target population had been incorporated into
the DNOCS and CODEVASF schemes, reflecting the constraint of
organization, as well as finance, involved in such schemes. More
seriously, the schemes involved substantial displacement of farm-
ers, with the rate of farmer displacement generally well in excess of
the rate of farmer absorption, so that net employment creation has
clearly been negative. Hall (1978) gives examples of three represen-
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertclo 485

tative DNOCS irrigation perimeters at which three to six times as


many people were forced off the land in the valleys as were subse-
quently absorbed by the projects established there. The percentage
of displaced farmers absorbed as recruits could be as low as 5 per
cent (Hall, 1978: 75-9). At one perimeter, Morada Nova, visited by
the present authors in 1984, it was reported that at the time of
expropriation it was not possible to use on the scheme all the people
expropriated because the population was so dense so that, indeed,
there had been some emigration from the area in question, the
opposite of officially stated objectives. Hall notes (1983: 12) that
neither DNOCS nor CODEVASF makes provision for relocating
dispossessed farmers on alternative land or supplying them with
replacement housing.
The rate of net farmer displacement is still higher in CODEVASF
schemes, as might be expected from the general priority given to
medium and large-scale farmers and companies.
A direct reason why farmers displaced exceed farmers absorbed is
that the area disappropriated for a scheme always exceeds by far the
area subsequently cultivated by those settled. In the case of the
DNOCS perimeters the area under production in 1982 was overall
just 13 per cent of the area disappropriated, while for CODEVASF
the figure was just 12 per cent.
Turning to the critical question of the rate of return on the
resources invested in irrigation, one factor which will affect this
(and the level of employment generated) is the high level of capital
investment per settler. Sampaio et al. (1978) found that the cost per
job created was US$14,000, about twice the maximum level pre-
dicted originally by the GEIDA group. Another estimate (Noronha,
1980) was that it costs about US$13,000 per hectare to establish a
scheme, including the cost of land, farm improvements and commu-
nity infrastructure, but without counting central installations.
Coelho (1975), referred to by Hall, gave a figure of US$34,000 to
install one family on a DNOCS scheme.
High costs of administration have swollen costs per hectare and
per family settled. In a sample of 10 DNOCS perimeters the ratio of
settlers t o scheme employees in 1983 varied between 0.7 (employees
actually exceeding settlers in number) to 2.7. The total number of
settlers on the 10 schemes in 1983, 911, compared with a total for
employees of 567, a ratio of only 1.6. In an earlier year, DNOCS and
CODEVASF together were said to have over 10,OOO employees
servicing just 4,275 families, a settler/employee ratio of 0.43
486 I. Livingstone and M. AssuncBo

(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.

Among the technical factors involved is a major problem of


salinity, quite serious in major projects. This was estimated by one
writer to affect about 30 per cent of all irrigated lands in the region
(Coelho, 1975, quoted by Hall). If this was an overestimate, the
problem is certainly great on some schemes. Soil quality is variable,
affecting individual farmers yields, but also often requiring long
transmission distances necessitating expensive investment in canals
and involving substantial transmission losses. Only 1-2 per cent of
land area in the northeast has been assessed as containing better than
moderate or worse soils, with about 60 per cent as unsuitable for
cultivation at all (Ministerio da Agricultura/SUPLAN, 1975). As
an F A 0 report notes (FAO, 1983: 32) the predominantly poor
resource base of the Northeast limits the number of locations where
sufficient water can be brought to land of adequate fertility for
profitable irrigation to be possible. Thus, as a consequence, among
schemes visited by the authors the main canal at the Morada Nova
scheme measures 24 km, and that at Ibimirim as much as 33 km.
Given the heavy capital investment costs per hectare, therefore,
even leaving out of account the capital costs of the dams, and the
problems of soil fertility and salinity, for irrigation to be very eco-
nomic it would be essential to have high-valued crops. The GEIDA
group, in its original Pluriannual Irrigation Programme, based its
projected high farmer incomes on the cultivation and export of
high-value fruits and vegetables. The bulk of actual production has
proved to be of traditional crops consumed throughout the region,
such as beans, rice and maize, though sugar has been grown on
CODEVASF schemes.
As far as these staple crops are concerned, the 1983 F A 0 Mission
concluded (p. 33) on the basis of its own analyses:

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.

If we turn, thirdly, to the equity aspect, it follows from the high


capital costs per farmer, and the small numbers of families actually
settled, that the programme is directed towards a privileged minor-
ity of farmers, even if not all of these have found it beneficial. It
488 I. Livingstone and M . Assun@o

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.

5. COMPONENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE POLICY FOR


DROUGHT AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE NORTHEAST

The professed objectives of water investment policy and rural devel-


opment policy in general in the northeast have been to cushion the
effects of drought for those most affected, to raise the general
standard of living and eliminate the widespread rural poverty which
exists, and to substantially reduce the extent of rural-urban migra-
tion within and outside the region.
The effectiveness of policies directed towards these ends depends
entirely on their reaching the relevant target groups comprising the
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sert@o 489

most vulnerable. These groups are well-known in general terms, but


more precision can be obtained simply by examining the composi-
tion of those who are forced to supplement their incomes in drought
by joining a work front. In 1979 no more than 20 per cent owned any
land at all: and out of this 20 per cent only 8 per cent owned more
than 20 ha (Pessoa, 1983). It becomes fairly evident that the main
programmes which have been adopted largely passed by this basic
target population. This is true of both the early large public dam
construction policy and the more recent and current irrigation
development policy, as well as the various special programmes
which have been closely tied to the latter.
As regards effectiveness in preventing rural-urban drift, we may
simply quote estimates given to the authors for one area, the Caico
municipio, for which the rural population in 1984 was put at some
10,000-12,000, compared with a pre-drought figure for 1979 of
43,000. Movement was said to have been to Caico, in the first place,
and in a proportion of cases onward to Sgo Paulo. Drought is clearly
an important factor, due to the strong discouragement imparted and
the loss of physical assets tying a family to the area. It is usually the
case that a substantial proportion of displaced persons return to
their rural locations at the end of the drought, but a fraction may not
return, particularly younger people, droughts having a ratchet
effect operating at each drought to abstract population from the
Sertgo.
The solution to drought which has been adopted has always been
the hydrological one, originally of large public dams and subse-
quently of irrigation. Water-related works have also formed a large
and probably disproportionate part of Emergency activity. The
large public dams, we have seen, have been relatively little used,
particularly in relation to their colossal costs, which historically
have involved a major opportunity cost.
The demand for water in the Sertgo may be divided into consump-
tion water and production water. As far as consumption water is
concerned, one may make a distinction between urban demand and
the requirements of dispersed rural households, since these may well
need to be catered for differently. It turns out that the large DNOCS
dams have not been of much utility for either purpose. The urban
population within the Sertgo is generally located in a fairly large
number of small, scattered towns. The DNOCS dams have the dis-
advantage here of offering concentrated sources of supply of water.
As a result they are not much used by the townships, which do not
490 I. Livingstone and M . Assunpjo

depend particularly on dams of any kind, using also tubewells and


other sources, often in combination. The DNOCS dams are even
less relevant to the needs of dispersed rural households.
Production water may be applied to crops or to livestock. A
major portion of rural development funds have been applied by the
government to crops, through irrigation. It has been said, in fact,
that the government is interested in irrigation, and the farmers in
livestock. The problem of crop losses could never be solved through
the provision of irrigation water, however, because a preponderant
part of the land area in the Sert%ois unsuitable for irrigation. The
supply of some of the public schemes which utilize suitable patches
of land involve the construction of lengthy irrigation canals. Costs
of irrigation are high, associated with the costs also of storing water
from one year to another in a semi-arid climate with high rates of
evaporation loss. Productivity is not uniformly high, with great
variations between farmers, many farmers not making adequate
incomes, and general profitability being seriously affected by dis-
tance from markets and a lack of suitable high-valued crops.
The high costs and limited land suitability for irrigation mean that
relatively few small producers can be so established, so that irriga-
tion tends to serve the favoured few. Little employment is created
and, indeed, irrigation has involved substantial farmer displace-
ment and net loss of employment rather than contributing to labour
absorption.
On the surface the DNOCS dams would be expected to make a
more positive contribution through the regulation of rivers down-
stream, because of the large number of users potentially benefiting.
In practice many of the regulated rivers pass through tracts of
land owned by large landowners, generally poorly utilized. Those
parts of the rivers which have been regulated have not been inten-
sively used, in fact, and where they are used this has involved pump-
ing, increasing costs and limiting the number of farmers who are
able to profit from the opportunity. This is not to say that poten-
tial does not exist to be exploited, and the possibilities certainly
need much more systematic attention than they appear to have
received.
As regards production water for livestock, the interesting point of
contrast is between the very limited usage of large public dams for
this purpose, and the rather critical role played by smaller private
dams of all types. For livestock what is required is distributed
supplies of water within reasonable proximity of the household,
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 49 1

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:

1. They need to be directed towards the mass of the rural popula-


tion in the rural Sertlo;
2. They should be directed towards labour absorption, and not
be capital-using or involve substantial capital assets beyond the
reach of most farmers;
3. Taking into account the ratchet effect of droughts in persua-
ding people to leave, or not to return to, the rural areas, they should
include specific measures to increase the capacity to withstand
drought;
4. This should not be the only focus, however, and the measures
adopted should help to move households in the direction of long-run
viability;
5 . Despite the acknowledged effects of drought, the willingness
to stay in the rural areas is likely to be a function of the acceptability
of life there over a period, and the willingness to return there after
drought a function of overall conditions, incomes realized over a
period and, for youth especially, future prospects. This therefore
includes income in good years as well as bad, and would be affected
492 I . Livingstone and M . Assuncdo

by the availability of social amenities and services, including domes-


tic water supply.

Specific recommendations may be discussed under the head of (a)


land tenure; (b) water provision; (c) crops; and (d) livestock.

Land Tenure

A large majority of rural households are caught in a vicious circle,


cultivating small farms in marginal areas with low productivity,
allowing neither own savings nor eligibility for credit with which to
improve water supplies or develop whatever livestock holdings they
have; subject, moreover, to periodic loss of whatever assets have
been accumulated. While large-scale land reform is needed, if this is
not practicable it may still be possible t o make piecemeal progress in
this direction by acquiring small areas of more suitable land over
time for settlement.
It should be recognized, secondly, that even within the category of
very small farms it makes a considerable difference whether a
household has 5 , 10 or 15 ha, and increases in access to land even
over this range are worth pursuing. Provision for the landless is
equally important, even if this is sufficient only for a contribution
towards subsistence and household viability.
The granting of land titles t o small farmers should be pursued as
a means of discouraging migration through providing a sense of
ownership and strengthening attachment to the land.
Attention to the promotion of small farms can be justified by the
available evidence in northeast Brazil and elsewhere of an inverse
relationship between farm size and gross output per hectare.

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

part of integrated rural development planning. At the same time as


expensive public irrigation schemes are played down, special pro-
grammes should be reoriented towards dry farming and livestock.
The emphasis must be on distributed water provision through a
multiplicity of sources, geared towards household requirements and
the watering of small stock and scattered smallholdings of cattle. A
rural water development programme would build on the wide range
of methods of obtaining water which are currently found useful:
cisterns, barreios, small dams, amazonas and tubewells. The
optimum mix adopted, however, should be based on a calculation
of relative costs and benefits in each area. Once this optimum mix
is identified, the best way of organizing a comprehensive assault
on water needs at the average farm household level should be
considered.
In calculating benefits, attention should not be limited to the
capacity to cope in extreme years, though this is important, but
extended to stabilizing water availability within years and extending
its availability into the dry season. Due to the existence of certain
scale economies in water provision, whether via small dams or tube-
wells, the emphasis should be on shared facilities serving groups of
families or small communities. Possibilities of appropriate tech-
nology such as windmills should be explored.
A progressive expansion in the number of households equipped
with cisterns should be aimed at, to provide the basis for wider
delivery of emergency supplies during drought.

Crops

As indicated above, there should be reorientation of attention


towards dry farming, the majority of farmers depending upon rain-
fed crops. At the same time measures to marginally increase yields
per hectare, or even to introduce more resistant varieties of crops,
may not be effective in dealing with extreme drought years when
adequate rainfall fails t o materialize. One problem facing poor
farmers is to obtain a further supply of seed after crop failure.
Institutional arrangements should be made to cover provision on
credit of such seed as is required following crop failure.
494 I . Livingstone and M . Assunpio

Livestock

There are two reasons why a major focus of attention should be on


livestock, and particularly goats and sheep. Sheep and goats are
relatively widely owned (although not exclusively so) by the poorer
farm families, so that they constitute an obvious potential means of
assisting the target group. Compared with cattle or irrigation infra-
structure they are readily divisible among a large number of house-
holds, and do not represent substantial capital assets which can be
made available only to a small minority of households. They do, on
the other hand, multiply quickly, so that they represent readily
augmentable capital in the hands of poor households and a means of
achieving relatively rapid recovery following a drought. They are
hardy, being able to browse on whatever foliage is available, and
contribute to subsistence as well as being a potential source of cash.
Secondly, although we have indicated the need to expand the very
small holdings of land in the possession of the smallest farmers, a
feature of rain-fed agriculture in the SertSlo is that whether the
holding is of 20 or 100 ha, nil output is likely to be secured in a major
rains failure. If, therefore, nil income is secured in a drought year,
by what means can a poor household survive? The answer lies in
assets which may be sold off for income: and the most obvious assets
which could be available to poor rural households are goats. This is
indeed the observable practice. During the last drought the sale of
goats by poor families was a widespread phenomenon. These assets
became exhausted in many cases, however, after consecutive years
of drought, eventually forcing the abandonment of the homestead
in many instances. It is towards prevention of this abandonment
that efforts need to be directed.
While much of the actual rural development resources and effort
over the past decade or so has been directed towards irrigation, it
may be seen that the observable difference between large and small
producers capacity to survive a drought is not the involvement of
the farmer in irrigation. The most direct reason is that they have
more substantial assets in the form of cattle, which they are able to
sell off in order to maintain a flow of cash income; but also have the
means to maintain this capital intact more effectively, through
access to private dams in many cases (which also means access to
natural pastures outside the range which would be available to poor
households) and to fodder, sometimes from limited irrigated areas.
A general point may be made here. The official response to
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertdo 495

drought has been to undertake major expenditures for storing


water. Water may be much more expensive to store, however
(because it evaporates), than livestock. Whether these are cattle or
small stock, the amounts of water they require for drinking pur-
poses are minute and can be provided easily, for example, by a
tubewell.
Two measures which are called for are: (a) breeding programmes
for the improvement of native races of goat and the adaptation of
foreign ones, and (b) a credit programme for the distribution of
goats in kind, available on a continuing basis for the purpose of
building up small mixed-farm units and available specifically fol-
lowing a drought to assist in the reconstitution of livestock assets
following forced sale.
Some experience already exists in both these directions. Revista
ACP (1984, No. 3, News Section. p. 32) reports on a goat project
initiated in 1980 by the Pernambuco State Secretary for Agriculture.
This included supply of technical and financial assistance to goat-
raisers, incentives for growing fodder, and research into improving
genetic standards. In 1984 the Pernambuco Department of Animal
Production maintained in two farms in Sertania, a Sertso
municipio, the largest and more selected stock of goats of the Bhuj
(Indian) and Anglonubian (British) races in the country, but also
maintained other races at other farms, at Bom Jardim, Toggenburg
(a milk breed); at Garanhuns, Saanen (a milk breed); in Flores,
Mambrina (a meat and milk breed); and in Iguaraci, Moxoto (a
breed which provides the best-quality skin). Technical assistance
given by the Department of Animal Production consisted of sani-
tary control (vaccination, vermifumigation), guidance on feeding
and management, and on commercialization of milk and skins
production.
The credit programme was based on the farmer receiving either
one ram and five ewes or two rams and three ewes, with the obliga-
tion to return the identical loan in kind 2 years later. Credit schemes
in kind along these lines have been successful elsewhere, for example
for the distribution of merino sheep under Kenyas Special Rural
Development Programme in the mid-1970s. In the first 3 years of the
project, 1980-2, 1,800 individual projects were approved and in
1983 another 800, resources coming mainly from the State Bank of
Pernambuco (2 billion cruzeiros in the 4-year period 1980-3) but
also from the Bank of Brazil. Credit was also issued to permit the
planting of 160,000mudas of afgaroba and 455 ha ofpalma (cactus)
496 I. Livingstone and M . Assuncdo

as fodder, and some buffel grass. Goat-raisers also received assis-


tance for silo construction and production of hay.
A possible weakness is that the projects benefited both small and
medium farms indiscriminately. Nevertheless the Revista A CP
reports a significant impact from the project throughout the State of
Pernambuco and a reversal of the trend in the number of goats,
which had been in decline up to 1979. Our recommendation would
be to confine the credit to sheep and goats, rather than cattle, except
in areas unsuited to the former, as a means of effectively targeting
assistance widely and to those most in need. Successful raising of a
goat herd can provide the means subsequently to acquire cattle if
desired. At present relatively little credit is offered for sheep and
goat production in the northeast. A sample survey of the utilization
of bank credit among keepers of sheep and goats carried out in
Bahia in 1974 found that in a sample of 780 the percentage using
credit was just 6.9 (Govern0 do Estado da Bahia, 1974).
As noted above, cattle-raisers have found it much easier to survive
droughts, due to superior access to fodder. In the last drought large
numbers of goats are reported to have died for lack of fodder, while
poor families made substantial capital losses through forced sales at
low prices in a buyers market. Measures to ensure fodder avail-
ability to poor farm households are an essential adjunct to the
recommended policy.
Silos for fodder, as well as for human food crops, are an obvious
possibility, and the fact that large owners devote major areas of
irrigated land to buffel grass for use as fodder, despite the costs of
irrigation, is suggestive of a high rate of return in combination with
livestock-raising. If goats are a potential vehicle for survival
through a drought period, access to even a small area of vazantes or
other irrigated plot could be critical to a small producer. We reiter-
ate the need, therefore, to ration access to such plots as far as is
practicable.
The major focus, however, should be on cactus. The authors
themselves encountered one medium-sized farmer who had success-
fully seen his cattle through the drought by feeding them forms of
cactus, which may be boiled to provide palatable fodder. Palma
cactus, it may be noted, is composed of 90 per cent water, and itself
comprises an alternative means of storing water. Coelho (1984)
recommends research into the improvement of the cuutinga, the
natural vegetation of the SertPo, including specifically palma
forrageira, facheiro and mandacaru, and suggests the interplanting
Drought and Development in the Brazilian Sertcio 497

of palma, algaroba, and cotton. Coelho also comments, inter-


estingly, on the limited number of goat projects and complete lack
of sheep projects. While algaroba has been criticized as an invader
crop it has been a major source of food for cattle during drought,
and it is doubtful whether one can afford not to promote it.
Macambira is described as a highly nutritive fodder crop of some
potential in Agropecuaria Tropical (No. 31, Recife, June 1983, A
Macambira, uma riqueza do Nordeste). It should be checked what
inhibits more widespread planting of these fodder sources, but it
would seem that measures to encourage their systematic planting
and use should constitute an important immediate element in agri-
cultural extension programmes. Development of improved and
appropriate varieties of these and of the caatinga generally should
be made an important element in research programmes.
To summarize, what is recommended here is a totally different
emphasis, on livestock rather than on irrigation, and within
livestock on small stock, combined with the establishment of
forage, centred on appropriate cacti and other plants. Distributed
water supplies at the farm household level would be supportive. As
compared with palliative action adopted under emergency situa-
tions this would raise productivity in the small mixed farm in the
good or average year, not merely the bad; it would endow the small
farm with assets needed to negotiate years of zero crop output; and
would thus provide a degree of insurance against crop failure, per-
haps encouraging also a more positive approach with respect to
crops.
Unlike the policy centred on irrigation, this approach is one more
closely guided by knowledge of the agricultural economy of the
Sertiio and the resources available to the average farm household,
and may be described as a bottom-up policy compared with the
top-down policy being pursued. It is a failure to take cognizance of
the nature of the Sertiio economy and the precise ways in which it is
affected by drought which has led to a misspecification of policy.
As compared with existing Emergency programmes, the set of
policies above would include: (a) anticipatory action, such as the
installation of distributed water supplies closer to the level of the
farm household, fodder supplies, and the building-up of disposable
farm household assets to help carry the household through the
droughts; (b) post-drought recuperative action through the distribu-
tion of seed for re-planting on credit, and credit for the reconstitu-
tion of livestock holdings; and (c) permanent improvement in the
498 I. Livingstone and M . Assuncdo

level of farm household incomes in normal years and the possibility


of progressive development of the small mixed farm.
Finally, the programme described would constitute a more
genuine form of integrated rural development planning: (a) it would
be focused on the main target groups, including the landless if the
land policies suggested were seriously pursued; (b) it would combine
a set of mutually supportive actions by different agencies covering
the whole farm and dealing with social welfare as well as economic
activities; and (c) effective implementation would require a substan-
tial degree of decentralization to the local level, this kind of detailed
programme simply not being implementable by remote control from
above. The components described could give substantive content to
Projeto Nordeste for tile futdre as an integrated rural development
programme tailored to the needs and potential of the Sertiio.

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.

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Ian Livingstone is Professor of Development


Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich
NR4 7TJ, England. He has written and edited a
number of books in the field of development
economics and rural development, including,
with Arthur Hazlewood, Irrigation Economics in
Poor Countries.

MBrcio Assunqiio is researching problems of


drought in the Brazilian northeast with the
School of Development Studies, University of
East Anglia. More permanently he is a faculty
member in the Department of Economics of the
State University of Pernambuco, Brazil, and is
an economist of some years standing with the
Superintendency for the Development of the
Northeast (SUDENE).

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