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The institutional establishment in Mexico is complex but, for our purposes, we need only to know that PRODERITH - working in areas of excessive rain - and the irrigation sector- working in arid areas - were institutionally linked by water, their common denominator. For this reason, the Comision Nacional del Agua - (CNA) was in charge of both PRODERITH and the irrigation sector.
In the late 1980s, as part of its structural adjustment programmes and its modernization of the agricultural sector, the Government decided to pass the administration and maintenance of its irrigation districts to their users. Irrigation is enormously important in Mexico, and the desert areas, especially in the north, can produce almost no crops without it. The total of about 6 million hectares under irrigation make up 30 percent of the harvested area and provide about 50 percent of the total value of agricultural production. The 80 distritos de riego (irrigation districts) comprise more than 3 million hectares, while the remaining irrigated area is in about 25 000 smaller unidades de riego (irrigation units). These smaller units were generally more productive than the larger districts.
At the time of the decision to transfer management of the districts to their users, their production had been in decline for several years. Many of them were suffering from poor maintenance and from a lack of investment caused by the economic climate. Furthermore, there was almost no participation from farmers in financing the operational and maintenance costs. They were paying for their water by the hectare under irrigation, not by the quantity of water used. Since the farmers had no financial incentive to use water efficiently, they were wasting much of it. It was estimated by the CNA that, on average, of every 100 litres of water used, only 40 reached the plot.
The Government's strategy was to retain responsibility only for the headworks. The water distribution systems below these were to be transferred to their users. The Government, through the CNA, would maintain some supervisory and technical support functions only. Transferring the management of irrigation districts to a large number of farmers, estimated at between 250 000 and 300 000, would involve changing farmers' attitudes, capacities and, organization on a monumental scale. Communication would be central to bringing about those changes.
As a first step, a massive flow of information to farmers was needed to explain the Government's policy and its implications for them. Then, farmers had to form and develop associations to receive the infrastructure, manage and maintain it. They needed training in all aspects of organizing and running civil associations, in creating participatory and democratic processes within the associations, as well as in the technical and financial aspects of managing irrigation systems.
In addition, staff of the CAN outposted in the irrigation districts needed training in their role, which in the first instance was to conduct socio-economic studies in each of the irrigation districts as a basis for proposals as to how best to transfer it to its users. They also needed training in many technical aspects of their work with farmers' associations. For example, the whole question of the juridical identity of associations was of utmost importance, as were the procedures for establishing the rates that members would pay for their water.
In the event, the transferor irrigation districts involved working with about 330 users' associations, the vast majority of them set up especially for the purpose. In 1995, about 50 of these associations were doing very well, while some 50 were doing badly, and the remainder were functioning satisfactorily. This massive transfer process aroused worldwide interest, and people from other countries with state-run irrigation systems came to see how the Mexicans had achieved what they did.
A communication project was established specifically for work in the irrigation districts with technical support from FAO. It was called "Establishment of a Rural Communication System for the Efficient Use of the Hydro-Agricultural Infrastructure in Mexico". The Central Communication Unit in Cuernavaca managed the project as it had the two previous ones for PRODERITH.
The communication efforts began with a campaign to inform farmers of the Government policy. A series of videos was made, beginning in 1989 with one which emphasized that transferring the Districts to their users was the key to modernisation. At the same time, the tone of that video was designed to provoke an in-depth discussion among the farmers, and with them. The aim was to start the consultation process that would ultimately stimulate the necessary farmer organization and capacity. The communication staff went to the field with the CNA promotoreswhose task was to prepare the ground with farmers for the transfer process.
Later, videos began to show how the Districts that were the most advanced in the transfer process were faring as a way of encouraging others. And later still, videos of a more educational nature were made on subjects such as maintenance, problems of salinity, micro-irrigation, and so on.
A Regional Communication Unit was established in Ciudad Obregon, in the northern State of Sonora, to produce material for use there and in the neighbouring states of Sinaloa and Baja California. A course in presentation of audiovisual materials was held in August 1990, followed by an intensive 3-month production course for the communication staff. It covered radio, video and photography. Local Communication Units equipped with video-playback modules were set up in four irrigation districts, and plans were laid to expand into other districts in due course. By 1995, there were Communication Units in 15 irrigation districts. Their functions were similar to those of the communication committees in the PRODERITH areas.
The Ciudad Obregon Communication Unit was physically placed in the local of flees the CNA and, from quite early days, there were problems in its relations with the Central Unit in Cuernavaca. The problems began after the Central Unit took the initiative of using video to carry out some situation analyses of the state of the irrigation systems and of the process of transferring them to their users. The purpose was to provide the CNA staff with a picture of progress and problems. Many of the resulting videos showed that there were indeed problems. The idea was to video record the comments and reactions of CNA staff to these problems and take them back to the farmers.
However, the local management of the CNA accused the communication staff from the Central Unit of manipulating the information to provide a negative view. Thereafter, the communication people from the Central Unit were kept under a tight rein by the local CNA staff, and were not allowed to go to the field without prior permlsslon.
Mainly because of these tensions, the Ciudad Obregon Communication Unit, which also refused to use some videos produced by the Central Unit about a new water law in 1992, became increasingly independent. In addition, perhaps because of its location in the CNA office, it became something of a public relations arm for the CNA rather than a tool for true development communication. At least, that is the way the Central Unit saw it. Be that as it may, it is reported that the Ciudad Obregon Unit is producing very high quality materials of an informational nature, including a weekly TV programme for farmers that is broadcast in the area.
Interpersonal communication has been playing an even larger part in transferring irrigation districts to farmers than have audiovisual media. The network approach has been systematically used. For example, it was found that an extremely important actor in many communication networks in irrigated areas is the water controller, the person who is physically responsible for opening and closing the various sluices to individual plots. These people, often agronomists today in Mexico, are those who have the most contacts with farmers. Using them as a communication channel to and from farmers was a key strategy in many areas.
A crucial need in many irrigation districts was to create the space in time and in location that would give farmers the opportunity to communicate among themselves. They needed to discuss their organisational and technical problems, and also to communicate with CNA and other of finials. The only way to achieve this was through hundreds upon hundred of meetings. And those meetings had to be well prepared and run if they were to create the proper participatory and democratic processes.
In 1994, there was a meeting with all the heads of the 330 farmers' organisations that had been involved in receiving the irrigation infrastructure up to that time. The then Director General of the CNA told that meeting that the transfer of the irrigation systems had "required the greatest process of dialogue ever organized in this country".
Of course, the formal transfer of the irrigation districts to their users was only part of the modernisation process that the government of Mexico wanted to achieve. Unless the productivity of the irrigated areas could be improved significantly, and unless production could be competitive in international markets - especially in the framework of NAFTA - irrigated agriculture in Mexico would be threatened.
A constraint to improved productivity was that the farmers' associations promoted by the CNA were only concerned with the management of the irrigation systems; little has been done in respect of other problems faced by farmers in the irrigation districts, such as credit, marketing or technical assistance. Farmer's associations with broader interests than irrigation will be required to make agriculture in these areas more competitive, and the Communication System has been working in this direction.
Many of the conceptual aspects of the communication work for PRODERITH were also valid for the irrigated areas, beginning with certain principles about development actions. For example, projects designed by institutions often fail to meet the needs of farmers; institutional changes may lead to the abandoning of actions that are already underway, and this may cause frustration among farmers and destroy the relationship between them and the institution; and finally, when demands for development actions come from the farmers themselves, it is possible to generate an orderly dialogue within their organizations and with external institutions that will lead to an agreed work plan.
An early step was to expand on the Local Communication Units in the irrigation districts by training development agents within each of the farmers' organisations. These people were trained to identify and analyse problems and projects in terms of their communication, information, and training needs. This was the basis for integrated communication, information, and training strategies which came from the farmers themselves rather than from the institutions.
Creating the opportunities in place and time for farmers to communicate and exchange ideas continued to be an important element, and a complement to the use of media.
In 1995, this communication work was well advanced in an irrigation district called Rio Colorado in the Valley of Mexicali in Baja California. To give an idea of the organisational complexity, the district comprises 214 000 hectares and 14 000 farmers. They are divided into 23 civil associations that were set up for the transfer of the irrigation systems. In 1995, two limited companies were being created to manage water distribution.
The communication work began with a long period of organization that involved 27 meetings with different levels of participation, from presidents of the irrigation modules to their technical staff. In many of the meetings, technicians and farmers together went through a learning process in the identification and analysis of problems and in developing concrete action plans to overcome them.
A workshop in communication and communication networks for 19 participants from the associations was conducted. Particular attention was paid to formulating a campaign to try to overcome the problem of farmers not understanding the issue of paying economic rates for their irrigation water, and in quite a few cases, of not paying at all.
Mexicali is just one example of an area where communication for the irrigated sector was in progress in 1995. Even if the Northwest of the country, which includes Mexicali, is the most important for irrigated agriculture, there are many other areas with irrigation in which the Communication System was actively helping farmers to improve their productivity. By late 1995, about 2 300 000 hectares had already been transferred to their users, leaving about 700 000 hectares still to be transferred.
The costs of the Communication System should be seen in relation to the rest of the costs for the two phases of PRODERITH. For the first phase, the total cost was US$149 million, and the cost of the Rural Communication System was US$ 1.76 million, which represents about 1.2 percent of the total. For the second phase, the World Bank estimated that the total cost was US$143 million (Originally, the total expenditures planned for PRODERITH 11 were to be US$365 million (in /995 Dollars). The World Bank approved a loan of US$109 million. but the economic conditions were so difficult that Mexico was only able to draw on about US$ 78 million of this), while the costs of the Communication System was US$3.2 or 2.2 percent of the total. Taking both phases together, the cost of the Communication System was about 1.7 percent of total project costs.
For the transfer of the irrigation districts to their users, the cost of the Rural Communication System was US$4.85 million, but a figure for the total cost of that operation is not available as a basis for comparison.
It could be thought that the investment in equipment for the Communication System would constitute a very high proportion of the expenditure, but in fact, much more was spent on training and on the production and presentation of materials. Total expenditure on equipment was US$ I 061 000, or just over 21 percent of the cost of the System.
The useful life of the equipment was always estimated as being five years, and therefore an annual 20 percent depreciation was charged when calculating operating costs. In the event, the equipment turned out to have a much longer life; much of it is still operating satisfactorily after more than ten years.
Staff of the Rural Communication System calculate that the cost of producing a 15-minute video programme is about US$3 000 if it can be done by one of the Regional Communication Units, working in its own area. This figure can rise to US$5 500 if the producers work outside of their own area and have to take into account airfares, subsistence allowances, and possible hire of equipment.
Although it is difficult to reach a precise figure, it has also been calculated that the average cost per participant in audio-visual presentations is about US$3.80. This cost varies according to how long and for how many presentations a given production is used.
With regard to impact, perhaps the most significant comment was made by Fernando Gonzales Villareal, at the time the Director General of the CNA, in a videotaped interview:
"Our [communication] costs have remained under 1.5 percent of the investment and the benefits obtained under the first phase of PRODERITH have demonstrated to us that the enhanced project implementation and the rapid transfer of technology have contributed to the fact that our internal rate of return has been higher than originally proposed and programmed. It is 7 percent higher than originally planned for the projects.
"We have also taken on the responsibility not to build anything which has not been previously discussed and accepted by the future beneficiaries. This means a more democratic development with increased participation by rural communities."
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