Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Agricultural Systems
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy

Review

Sustainable rice production in African inland valleys: Seizing regional

potentials through local approaches
Jonne Rodenburg a,, Sander J. Zwart b, Paul Kiepe a, Lawrence T. Narteh c, Wilson Dogbe d,
Marco C.S. Wopereis b
a

Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), East and Southern Africa, P.O. Box 33581, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), 01 BP 2031, Cotonou, Benin
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 0153, Rome, Italy
d
Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), P.O. Box TL 52, Tamale, Ghana
b
c

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 21 December 2012
Received in revised form 18 September 2013
Accepted 19 September 2013
Available online 29 October 2013
Keywords:
Lowlands
Wetlands
Integrated crop management
Water management
Biodiversity
Participatory approaches

a b s t r a c t
With an estimated surface area of 190 M ha, inland valleys are common landscapes in Africa. Due to their
general high agricultural production potential, based on relatively high and secure water availability and
high soil fertility levels compared to the surrounding uplands, these landscapes could play a pivotal role
in attaining the regional objectives of food security and poverty alleviation. Besides agricultural production, i.e. mainly rice-based systems including sh-, vegetable- fruit- and livestock production, inland valleys provide local communities with forest, forage, hunting and shing resources and they are important
as water buffer and biodiversity hot spots. Degradation of natural resources in these vulnerable ecosystems, caused by indiscriminate development for the sole purpose of agricultural production, should be
avoided. We estimate that, following improved water and weed management, production derived from
less than 10% of the total inland valley area could equal the total current demand for rice in Africa. A signicant part of the inland valley area in Africa could hence be safeguarded for other purposes.
The objective of this paper is to provide a methodology to facilitate fullment of the regional agricultural potential of inland valleys in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) such that local rural livelihoods are beneted
and regional objectives of reducing poverty and increasing food safety are met, while safeguarding other
inland-valley ecosystem services of local and regional importance. High-potential inland valleys should
be carefully selected and developed and highly productive and resource-efcient crop production methods should be applied. This paper describes a participatory, holistic and localized approach to seize the
regional potential of inland valleys to contribute to food security and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan
Africa. We analyzed over a 100 papers, reference works and databases and synthesized this with insights
obtained from nearly two decades of research carried out by the Africa Rice Center and partners. We conclude that sustainable rice production in inland valleys requires a step-wise approach including: (1) the
selection of best-bet inland valleys, either new or already used ones, based on spatial modelling and a
detailed feasibility study, (2) a stakeholder-participatory land use planning within the inland valley based
on multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods and using multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP), (3)
participatory inland-valley development, and (4) identication of local production constraints combining
model simulations and farmer participatory priority exercises to select and adapt appropriate practices
and technologies following integrated management principles.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents
1.
2.

3.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Current inland valley use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.
Drivers for inland valley use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.
Multi-functional character of inland valleys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Constraints to development and use of inland valleys in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Corresponding author. Tel.: +255 222780768, 688425335.

E-mail address: j.rodenburg@cgiar.org (J. Rodenburg).
0308-521X/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2013.09.004

2
3
3
3
4

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

4.

5.

3.1.
Development constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.
Production constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Towards sustainable inland valley development and exploitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.
Selecting suitable inland valleys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.
Participatory land use planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.
Designing, implementing and evaluating best-fit water management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.
Optimizing productivity and profitability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Conclusions regional potentials, local approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Introduction
Inland valleys can be dened as seasonally ooded wetlands
comprising valley bottoms (uxial) and hydromorphic fringes
(phreatic) but excluding river ood plains (Fig. 1; Table 1). With
an estimated land area of 190 M ha (FAO, 2003) inland valleys
are abundantly available in Africa and serve a multitude of ecosystem functions. Inland valleys, in particular the valley bottoms
bas-fonds, fadamas, inland swamps in West Africa; mbuga in East
Africa and vleis, dambos, mapani, matoro, inuta or amaxhaphozi in
Southern Africa according to Acres et al. (1985) generally have
a high agricultural production potential due to their relative high
and secure water availability and soil fertility (Andriesse et al.,
1994). The hydromorphic slopes of the inland valleys are often
used for dryland rice and cash crops like cotton, while the upper
slopes, with lower groundwater levels (Fig. 1), are often grown
by high value fruit trees, like mangos and cashew nut, and fodder
crops (Balasubramanian et al., 2007), and the crests by maize or
sorghum (e.g. Lawrence et al., 1997). The ground cover provided
by these trees and crops on higher parts of the slope reduces soil
run-off towards the hydromorphic slopes and valley bottom (e.g.
de Ridder et al., 1997; Rodenburg et al., 2003). The only major food
crop that can be grown under the temporary ooded conditions of
these valley bottoms is rice (e.g. Andriesse and Fresco, 1991).
Depending on the species (Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima),

Fig. 1. Schematic landscape presentation of rice production environments along the

upland lowland continuum, and their hydrological regimes (Adapted from:
Windmeijer and Andriesse, 1993).

4
4
5
6
7
7
8
8
9
9

sub-species (japonica or indica) and cultivar, this crop can be grown

along the upland lowland continuum (e.g. Saito et al., 2010). The
development of inland valleys into rice-based production systems,
can be accomplished with relatively small-scale technologies that
would require moderate investments (Roberts, 1988). For this reason, inland valleys, comprising such huge and yet largely unexploited area, are strategically important for the development of
the African rice sector (e.g. Sakurai, 2006; Balasubramanian et al.,
2007).
Wetlands, such as inland valleys, are particularly important assets for the rural poor as they can full many services (Turner et al.,
2000). Apart from agricultural production, these ecosystems supply local communities with a range of goods, including hunting,
shing, forest and forage resources (e.g. Roberts, 1988; Scoones,
1991; Adams, 1993) and they are local hot-spots for biodiversity
(Chapman et al., 2001). As different inland-valley ecosystem functions may conict with agricultural objectives, and because there
are large area-specic differences in development suitability and
risks, indiscriminate development should be avoided (McCartney
and Houghton-Carr, 2009). Ecosystem functions of inland valleys,
such as biodiversity and water buffering, are affected when inland
valleys are used for agriculture. Where developments are implemented without proper impact assessments, they can negatively
affect local livelihoods and environments (e.g. Whitlow, 1983). Indeed, aligning food production with biodiversity conservation is an
important future challenge for agronomic and environmental research (Verhoeven and Setter, 2010). Following the above, the central aim of this paper is to develop an approach to full the regional
agricultural potential of inland valleys in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
such that local rural livelihoods are beneted and regional objectives of reducing poverty and increasing food safety are met, while
safeguarding other inland-valley ecosystem services of local and
regional importance.
A number of useful frameworks have recently been proposed to
characterize wetlands for their agricultural and ecological potentials in order to make informed decisions on their use (e.g.
McCartney and Houghton-Carr, 2009; Kotze, 2011; Sakan et al.,
2011). As a step forward compared to earlier methods specically
targeted to inland valleys, such as the ones proposed by Andriesse
and Fresco (1991) and Andriesse et al. (1994) that were primarily
based on biophysical and land use characterizations, these approaches combine biophysical with socio-economic characteristics. The next step forward is to integrate these characterizations
in a comprehensive methodology, supported by appropriate tools,
that runs from selection of the most suitable inland valley for agricultural production to the actual development and eventually to
sustainable management practices. Such methodology should also
provide guidelines on how to ensure participation of local stakeholders in all these stages. The current paper, focussing specically
on sustainable realization of the inland-valley potential for ricebased production systems, attempts to do just that, as we believe
that for the sustainable development of these ecosystems, the site
selection, land use planning and design, development and resource

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

Table 1
Rice growing ecosystem characterization (water supply, agro-ecological zone and main biophysical production constraints); inland valleys may cover the whole range from
hydromorphic fringes to irrigated lowlands. Sources: Andriesse et al. (1994), Kiepe (2006), Thiombiano et al. (1996), Wopereis et al.(2007).
Ecosystem

Upland

Hydromorphic fringes

Rain-fed lowland

Intensied lowland

Irrigated lowlands

Main water supply

Rainfall

Rainfall + water table

Regulated oods

Full irrigation

Agro ecological zone

Guinea savannah
humid forest
Drought, Weeds, Pest &
Diseases, P and N
deciency, Soil erosion,
Soil acidity

Guinea savannah humid

forest
Drought, Weeds, Pest &
Diseases, P and N deciency,
Soil erosion, Soil acidity, Iron
toxicity

Rainfall + water
table + unregulated
oods
Sudan savannah to
humid forest
Drought/ooding,
Weeds, Pest & Diseases,
P and N deciency, Iron
toxicity

Sudan savannah to
humid forest
Drought/ooding,
Weeds, Pest & Diseases,
P and N deciency, Iron
toxicity

Sahel to humid forest

Main biophysical
production
constraints

management should follow a participatory, integrated and systematic approach. We aim to provide a framework for such an approach based on a review of the literature and insights obtained
from recent research carried out by the Consortium for the Sustainable Use of Inland Valley Agro-Ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa
(short: Inland Valley Consortium, IVC) and its convening organization, the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice). The IVC, composed of
twelve West-African national agricultural research sytems and a
number of international (AfricaRice, IITA, ILRI, IWMI, FAO, Worldsh and CORAF) and advanced research institutes (CIRAD, Wageningen University), was founded in 1993 with the objective to
develop, in concerted and coordinated action, technologies and
operational support systems for the intensied but sustainable
use of inland valleys in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Current inland valley use
2.1. Drivers for inland valley use
There are no reliable gures about the percentage of the total
inland valley area (190 M ha) currently under rice production in
sub-Saharan Africa. Andriesse et al. (1994) were only able to provide a rough estimate for this area in West Africa (1025%) and this
estimate includes inland valleys in peri-urban areas that are
mainly used for vegetable production due to proximity of markets
(e.g. Erenstein, 2006; Erenstein et al., 2006). The share of inland
valley area under rice or rice-based production systems in the
whole of Africa, hence including the central, eastern and southern
parts, is expected to be much lower. Inland valleys are, however,
increasingly used for agricultural production, partly driven by the
drought spells in the 1970s (e.g. Niasse et al., 2004), and following
declining soil fertility in the uplands due to unsustainable farming
practices (Windmeijer and Andriesse, 1993). Valley bottoms and
hydromorphic fringes generally have higher water availability
and higher soil fertility levels compared to upland soils (e.g.
Andriesse et al., 1994; van der Heyden and New, 2003), even
though soil fertility is still often suboptimal to sustain high crop
productivity. Rice yields in rain-fed upland rice systems in SSA
are currently around 1 t ha 1 (e.g. Rodenburg and Demont, 2009)
and production years should be followed by 37 years of fallow
to maintain soil fertility and control pests, diseases and weeds
(e.g. Becker and Johnson, 2001a). With good management, inland
valley rice can produce 56 t ha 1 without the need for such
unproductive fallow periods required in the uplands (Wakatsuki
and Masunaga, 2005).
Global changes have also given a new impetus to inland valley
development. While there are a number of conicting projections
with respect to the severity, timing and geographic distribution
of future wetting and drying (e.g. Cook and Vizy, 2006; Hoerling
et al., 2006; Biasutti et al., 2008), model forecasts suggest changing
and increasingly variable precipitation patterns in Africa resulting

Weeds, Pest & Diseases,

Salinity/Alkalinity, P and
N deciency, Iron
toxicity

in less rain in the Sahel (Giannini et al., 2008) and more in the
equatorial zones (Christensen et al., 2007). A secure harvest from
a wetland produced crop becomes of invaluable importance in
the increasingly dry and unreliable agricultural environments
(e.g. Scoones, 1991; Sakan et al., 2011). However, because of the
sensitivity of inland valley systems to changes in quantity, quality
and frequency of water supply, climate change also poses an
hydrological threat to these ecosystems, requiring adaptive management strategies (e.g. Erwin, 2009).
Besides the aforementioned biophysical assets, inland valley
development also has a clear economic driver. About 10 million
tonnes of milled rice, approximately 40% of the annual regional
consumption, is imported into Africa (mainly from Asian countries)
each year, worth about US $5 billion (Seck et al., 2010, 2012). Regional production has, however, increased steeply since the early
2000s due to a declining availability of global rice stocks for export,
and consequently an increase in regional farm-gate prices from an
estimated average US $285 per tonne in 1999 to US $564 per tonne
in 2009 (Based on available data from 20 rice-producing countries
in sub-Saharan Africa; FAO, 2010). These signicant price changes
have encouraged many small-scale farmers to take up rice production, as reected in an increased inland valley use (e.g. Sakurai,
2006).
2.2. Multi-functional character of inland valleys
Apart from their importance for agriculture, mainly rice and
maize production and horticulture (Sakan et al., 2011), inland valleys have essential ecosystem functions such as biodiversity conservation, water storage, local ood and erosion control, nutrient
retention and stabilization of the micro-climate (Adams, 1993;
Wood et al., 2013). These environments are also used for recreation
and tourism and for retrieving clay and sand for crafts and construction, and for collection and use of forest, wildlife, sheries
and forage resources and they contribute to local cultural heritage
(Dugan, 1990; Adams, 1993). Inland valleys are important locations for local communities to collect non-agricultural plant resources, and rural people generally recognize useful plant species
and dispose knowledge on their use, abundance and collection
places (Rodenburg et al., 2012).
Due to their multifunctional character, inland valleys are attractive for exploitation and therefore vulnerable to degradation. The
economic opportunities of inland valleys have been widely recognized and investments have indeed been made to make these areas
better accessible and protable. Indiscriminate development of
these vulnerable environments will however lead to degradation
of the natural resources they harbor, and thereby jeopardize their
unique and divers ecosystem functions (e.g. Dixon and Wood,
2003). The trade-off between conservation of natural resources
and agricultural land use is particularly critical in African wetlands
(e.g. McCartney and Houghton-Carr, 2009; Wood et al., 2013) and

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

therefore, any development activities in such ecosystems need to

be planned with care and should only be implemented when participation of the local users is guaranteed. Until recently, the
importance of wetland functions for local communities have, however, often been ignored in policy planning (Silvius et al., 2000;
Wood et al., 2013). Understanding the use and management of ecosystem functions by local communities would be the rst necessary step to generate recommendations for their sustainable use
(Rodenburg et al., 2012). Different ecosystem services do not necessarily conict. For instance, agricultural elds can be considered
as important locations to nd useful non-cultivated plants too
(Rodenburg et al., 2012). Farmers recognize the useful weed species during weeding and leave them untouched or keep them apart
after uprooting (see references in: Rodenburg and Johnson, 2009)
and at eld clearing useful species (predominantly trees) are often
maintained (e.g. Leach, 1991; Madge, 1995; Kristensen and Lykke,
2003). In fact this is a common strategy to cope with declining forests (Shepherd, 1992). Other strategies, observed by Rodenburg
et al. (2012) around inland valleys in Togo and Benin, include the
establishment of a community garden with useful species and
the conservation of a small community forest. These observations
show that local communities depending on natural resources in
and around inland valleys are able to exploit these landscapes synergistically, balancing agricultural production with biodiversity
conservation, use and management.

3. Constraints to development and use of inland valleys in

Africa
3.1. Development constraints
Inland-valley utilization efforts are driven by the aforementioned environmental and economic motives but mired by health
and cultural constraints. Traditionally, inland valleys were not often used for agricultural production purposes in Africa (Adams,
1993; Verhoeven and Setter, 2010). This is partly because inland
valley bottoms are difcult to manage and they are also often
associated with water-borne diseases such as malaria (e.g. Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium malariae, and Plasmodium ovale), river
blindness (onchocerciasis; vector: Onchocerca volvulus, source:
Wolbachia pipientis), bilharzia (schistosomiasis; Schistosoma
haematobium and Schistosoma mansoni) and sleeping sickness
(trypanosomiasis; Trypanosoma brucei or Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense) (e.g. Gbakima, 1994; McMillan et al., 1998; Yapi et al.,
2005). And even controlling such diseases is no guarantee for profitable (agricultural) exploitation of these environment, due to
counteractive policies (e.g. unfavourable tax regulations, cheap
food imports) and the lack of suitable technologies (McMillan
et al., 1998).
Many water management infrastructures built in the 1970s
have been abandoned. Such failures are thought to have resulted
from the lack of local community participation during selection,
design and planning of the developments (e.g. Dries, 1991;
Maconachie, 2008), or because traditional local land-tenure
arrangements were overlooked (Brautigam, 1992). In the 1960s
and 1970s many irrigation scheme developments in West Africa
were funded by public investment corporations and development
projects. The BeninChina Cooperation, for instance, developed a
total of 1400 ha inland valleys and ood plains into medium-sized
(25150 ha) irrigation schemes by equipping them with water
retention structures, irrigation and drainage canals, inlets and outlets, cofferdams and small bridges. Most of these irrigation
schemes are currently under-utilized or abandoned. One of the
exceptions is the irrigation scheme of Koussin-Ll, where farmers
grow rice on 106 ha developed land using gravity irrigation. A

comparison between this scheme and the nearby mostly unutilized

schemes of Bam and Zonmon (33 and 84 ha respectively) showed
that careful selection of the valley and local stakeholder
participation in planning, design, implementation and use of the
developments are prerequisites for successful development efforts
(Djagba et al., 2013).
The socio-economic environment in inland valleys is highly variable and complex. Inland valley exploitation is also often complicated by unfavourable land tenure arrangements (e.g. Thiombiano
et al., 1996; Fu et al., 2010; Oladele et al., 2010) or prohibiting customary beliefs. Land tenure arrangements vary between locations
and range from ownership by states to ownerships by individuals.
The most common ways in which farmers in inland valleys in Africa acquire ownership over land is through inheritance, marriage, or
through renting, lease or sharecropping (Oladele et al., 2011).
When farmers lack stable land ownership the incentive for longer-term investments is usually low and this in turn is likely to have
a negative effect on productivity and sustainable resource management. Farmers working in the inland valleys do often not possess
the rights over the land and are therefore not always beneting
from inland-valley development investments. Land tenure
arrangements also often affect gender relations. Land is mostly
owned by men but cultivated by women, in particular when the
value of the land is low due to, for example, low soil fertility or lack
of control over water. Upon development, when the value of the
land is raised, men can claim their rights again. Such social constructions should be considered when inland-valley development
projects are designed that aim at beneting the poor and empowering disadvantaged groups like women. In the Pegnasso inland
valley in south-east Mali, for instance, the French Development
Cooperation deliberately opted for a partial rather than a complete
development (Abdoulaye Hamadoun, personal communication).
The logic was that large investments would increase the land value
whereby women, using the land prior to the development, would
risk losing access, and would not benet from the project. The
modest improvements (a small water retention structure, one central inlet and bunded plots) enabled farmers to make better use of
the available water for a prolonged period of time and thereby increase rice productivity. As rice production in this inland valley is
locally mainly the responsibility of women the project succeeded
in its mutual goal to benet the community while strengthening
the position of women.
As inland valleys in Africa are socio-economically and biophysically diverse and complex (Sakan et al., 2011) the development of
these landscapes for crop production requires a exible and careful
approach (e.g. Andriesse et al., 1994), with actively participating
stakeholders.
3.2. Production constraints
Estimated actual rice yields in inland valleys across Africa
(1.4 t ha 1 according to Rodenburg and Demont, 2009) are much
lower than the attainable yield, i.e. the potential yield limited by
the available water and nutrients in a given environment
(Rabbinge, 1993), achieved under optimal management conditions
(56 t ha 1 according to Wakatsuki and Masunaga, 2005). Based on
a survey among rice scientists in eight countries in West Africa
weed competition, poor soil fertility and diseases, were classied
as the three most important biophysical production constraints,
responsible for these low actual yields in inland valleys
(Thiombiano et al., 1996; Table 1).
Dominant weeds in inland valley rice are grasses like Echinochloa spp. and Oryza spp. (wild rice), sedges such as Cyperus spp.
and a variety of broad-leaved weeds like Sphenoclea zeylanica,
Ludwigia spp. and Heteranthera callifolia (Rodenburg and Johnson,
2009). Another emerging problem in inland valleys across Africa,

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

in particular the ones with poor water control, is the parasitic weed
Rhamphicarpa stulosa (Rodenburg et al., 2010) causing crop yield
losses in infested farmers elds to exceed 60% (Rodenburg et al.,
2011). Other important biotic production constraints in inland valleys are diseases such as Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV), leaf blast,
bacterial leaf blight and brownspot. RYMV, endemic to Africa, is
transmitted by beetles (order Coleoptera, family Chrysomelidae)
and can lead to total yield losses ranging from 5% to 100% in
rain-fed lowland rice in Africa (Kouassi et al., 2005). Pests such
as insects (e.g. African rice gall midge, stem borers and rice bugs)
and rodents and birds can also cause signicant yield losses
(Balasubramanian et al., 2007). African rice gall midge, common
in both West and East Africa, damages rice tillers causing up to
65% yield loss (Nacro et al., 1996). It should be emphasized that
none of these pests and diseases is restricted to inland valleys
alone. If these ecosystems are to be put under production, however, one should nd effective ways to deal with them.
Low soil fertility is a general production constraint in inland valleys despite enrichment caused by soil deposition of silt and ne
clay factions through runoff from the surrounding uplands (Ogban
and Babalola, 2003) increasing the exchangeable bases (Kyuma,
1985), calcium and magnesium (Fagbami et al., 1985) and phosphorus contents (Ogban and Babalola, 2003). Soil fertility in these environments is often far from optimal for sustainable and protable
crop production. While soil fertility varies across agro-ecological
zones (Issaka et al., 1997), studies on soil fertility in inland valleys
across West Africa revealed low to very low levels of nitrogen, available phosphorus, pH, CEC and total carbon (Issaka et al., 1996), deciencies in micro-nutrients like sulfur and zinc (Buri et al., 2000)
and poor clay mineralogy (Abe et al., 2006). A commonly associated
problem with low soil fertility in inland valleys is iron toxicity
(Becker and Asch, 2005; Audebert and Fofana, 2009). This is a complex nutrient disorder caused by excessive iron in the soil solution
under the specic but typical water-logged conditions of rain-fed
and irrigated lowlands, in particular inland valleys (Narteh and
Sahrawat, 1999). Direct and indirect effects of iron toxicity can lead
to 4045% rice yield reductions in lowlands but this can be mitigated by effective water and soil fertility management and by
selecting tolerant cultivars (Audebert and Fofana, 2009).
Lack of inputs, credits, water control and labor, were the most
important institutional and socio-economic constraints mentioned
in the survey of Thiombiano et al. (1996). These constraints are all
inter-related and also closely related to the main biophysical constraints. Most farmers working in inland valleys in Africa are resource-poor subsistence farmers (Balasubramanian et al., 2007).
Such farmers generally have limited nancial means and monetary
surpluses (e.g. Ismaila et al., 2010) and they would need credits to
purchase inputs. Indeed, for resource-poor rice farmers, the nancial means or level of credits often determines the level of inputs,
such as fertilizer (Donovan et al., 1999), necessary to alleviate

the negative effects of biophysical production constraints. Without

access to credits, inputs are difcult to obtain and labor inputs will
have to increase to avoid crop losses. This labor trade-off is most
obvious in weed control. Weeding is by far the most time-consuming practice in rice cultivation in inland valleys and the time can be
signicantly reduced when farmers have access to herbicides (e.g.
Lawrence and Dijkman, 1997) or, presumably, when they have
control over water, as ooding is one of the most effective weed
control practices (e.g. Rodenburg and Johnson, 2009).

4. Towards sustainable inland valley development and

exploitation
While regional food security is an important goal, and agricultural production from already exploited as well as new inland valleys can contribute to this, the selection, development and
exploitation of these environments should be approached with
care. Not all inland valleys are necessarily suitable for crop production (e.g. Kotze, 2011; Sakan et al., 2011). Crop production derived
from the valleys that are suitable, would be enough to contribute
signicantly to the regions food security, in particular when ways
are employed to increase productivity and resource-use efciency.
The remainder of the valleys should be safeguarded for non-agricultural ecosystem services such as pastoralism, biodiversity and
wildlife sanctuaries and natural (excess) water buffers. To illustrate this, if the regional average rice yields in inland valleys could
be raised by only 1 t ha 1 through improved water and weed management (as shown by Becker and Johnson, 2001b), the current total continental rice production and imports could hypothetically be
covered entirely by production from only 9.1% of the estimated total land area of these landscapes in Africa (Table 2), and hence
more than 90% could be conserved. Future increases in rice demand should be accounted for by a further increase in productivity.
In reality signicant rice production is also derived from other rice
growing environments, such as uplands and river ood plains
(Balasubramanian et al., 2007; Seck et al., 2012), hence the 90%
of inland valleys that could be saved for other purposes, can be
considered as a lower limit.
Indeed, such a strategy requires systematic approaches and
methodologies for (1) characterizing and selecting the best bet
most suitable and least-risk inland valleys for agricultural development to avoid investment failures or unnecessary destruction of
wetlands, (2) participatory multi-stakeholder land use planning
within the inland valley, (3) designing, implementing and evaluating the best-t locally adapted and communally managed
water management development infrastructure and (4) optimizing
and locally adjusting crop management practices for increased
(rice) productivity. Proposed tools for each step are summarized in
Table 3.

Table 2
Estimated inland valley area (and percentage) needed to cover the total paddy demand of Africa, calculated as a sum of total rice import and production (based on 2010 gures),
assumed that mean productivity can be increased by at least 1 t ha 1 following improved water and weed management. Sources: Becker and Johnson (2001b), FAO (2003, 2012),
Rodenburg and Demont (2009), Seck et al. (2010).
Estimated gure
Milled rice import in Africa (2010)
Conversion rate paddy-milled rice
Equivalent paddy quantity of imported rice in Africa (2010)

10 M t
0.6
16.7 M t

Paddy production in Africa (2010)

Total paddy demand in Africa (2010)
Current productivity
Productivity (paddy) increase with improved water and weed management
Inland valley area needed for total paddy demand in Africa

24.7 M t
41.4 M t
1.4 t ha 1
2.4 t ha 1
17.25 M ha

Total inland valley area in Africa

Share of total inland valley area in Africa needed to cover total paddy demand

190 M ha
9.1%

Calculation

1
10  0:6

16.7 + 24.7

41:4
2:4

100  17:25
190

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

Table 3
Essential steps and tools for selection, planning and implementation of sustainable inland valley development.
Step

Proposed tools

Purpose

Key references

1. Selecting suitable inland

valleys

Remote sensing/GIS analysis/spatial

modelling
Random Forest method
Detailed agro-ecological survey
Working Wetland Potential index
(WWP)

To identify inland valleys and assess development potential

at national level
To assess agricultural potential
To determine the suitability for agricultural development
To determine the suitability for agricultural development

Thenkabail and Nolte (1996),

Thenkabail et al. (2000)
Laborte et al. (2012)
Andriesse et al. (1994)
McCartney and Houghton-Carr
(2009)

2. Participatory land use

planning

Multi-criteria decision making

(MCDM) such as the WWP
Multi-stakeholder platform (MSP)

To collect decision criteria from key stakeholders

Raj (1995), McCartney and

Houghton-Carr (2009)
Warner (2006)

Rapid pre-development diagnostics

(DIARPA)
Participatory Learning and Action
Research for Integrated Rice
Management (PLAR-IRM)
Simple, Participatory Inland Valley
Development Approach
Irrigation performance assessment

To assess inland valley water dynamics to select the best-t

intervention
To guide farmer participatory inland valley development
for improved water management to acquire ownership over
the development structures
To guide farmer participatory inland valley development
for improved water management
To monitor and improve productivity and sustainability of
irrigations systems

Lidon et al. (1998)

Sawah system development (SSD)

To improve water, nutrient and weed management to raise

crop productivity
To create farmers awareness, identify local production
constraints and locally available solutions to solve them

Abe and Wakatsuki (2011)

To prioritize production constraints, analyze management

options and guide decision making

Lansigan et al. (1997), Boling et al.

(2007), Laborte et al. (2009),
Worou et al. (2012)

3. Designing, implementing
and evaluating best-t
water management

4. Optimizing crop
management practices

Participatory Learning and Action

Research for Integrated Rice
Management (PLAR-IRM)
Modelling (e.g. ORYZA, EPIC, farm
household models)

To reach a workable compromise between stakeholders

interests

4.1. Selecting suitable inland valleys

The selection and characterization of suitable inland valleys is
of vital importance for successful agricultural development interventions. This accounts both for new, unexploited valleys as well
as for valleys that are already (partly) used for crop production.
Suitability depends on a wide range of socio-economic and biophysical factors that require investigation before proceeding to following steps. Pioneering work on assessing inland valley systems
and their potential for development has been conducted by
Andriesse et al. (1994) who proposed a comprehensive agroecological characterization on four levels: macro (1:1,000,000
1:5,000,000), reconnaissance (1:100,0001:250,000), semidetailed (1:25,0001:50,000) and detailed (1:5,00010,000). At
the rst level (macro), the major agro-ecological zones are distinguished based on the length of the growing period. They are then
sub-divided into agro-ecological units and sub-units at the reconnaissance level. This subdivision is based on information on lithology, hydrology, soils and climate using Geographic Information
System (GIS) tools (e.g. Narteh et al., 2007) and land use statistics
retrieved from national sources and rapid rural appraisals. This
methodology was further elaborated by Thenkabail et al. (2000)
who used various spatial data sets of soil, cropping seasons, roads,
population density, discharge and rainfall data in combination
with maps on land use and inland valleys classied from satellite
images. Each of the spatial layers was given a certain weight based
on expert knowledge, and by summing these weights inland valleys with high potentials were identied. This approach of spatial
modelling was later repeated for a research area in Ghana (Gumma
et al., 2009). Experts outlined bio-physical, technical, socioeconomic and eco-environmental indicators that affect the potential for development. But data scarcity for the indicators as well as
the debatable justication for the quantication of the weights
make the methodology inaccurate and subjective. Random Forests
(RF) procedures, a classication method based on a decision-tree,
may provide an alternative for the aforementioned methods as it
does not require prior knowledge or assumptions about the

Wopereis et al. (2007)

Worou (2013)
Dembl et al. (2012)

Wopereis et al. (2007)

relationships of, or interactions between, the variables and distribution of the data (Breiman, 2001). Random Forests procedures
were successfully applied to assess the potential for paddy rice cultivation in Laos using predictors on topography, climate, accessibility and demography and poverty (Laborte et al., 2012).
Remote sensing or remote-sensing derived products have been
used to map inland valleys. Simple image classication has been
used in Benin (Thenkabail and Nolte, 1996), Ghana (Gumma
et al., 2009) and Cote dIvoire (Thenkabail et al. 2000) to classify
images with good results. Thenkabail and Nolte (1996), Gumma
et al. (2009), and Chabi et al. (2010), identied inland valleys using
the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) determined
from satellite images, and a slope map generated by GIS software
using a digital elevation map. Cloudy conditions are, however, prevalent in most regions and this inhibits the implementation of such
methodologies on national or regional scales. Recently, AfricaRice
developed an automated mapping procedure based only on information from a digital elevation model, which is globally available
at a spatial resolution of 30 m. This standardized methodology is
currently being implemented and validated for the entire WestAfrican region (Zwart and Linsoussi, personal communication).
Such spatial modelling tools are helpful in the rst necessary
assessment of availability, suitability and locations of inland valleys and will save project developers or policymakers valuable
time and resources.
However, the application of spatial modelling, using GIS and remote sensing, can only provide an indication for the development
potential of inland valleys. Soil fertility and soil depth are of great
importance for this purpose as well, but information on such soil
characteristics are not widely available in maps with sufcient detail and cannot be derived with remote sensing techniques. Alongside biophysical and agronomic assessments, socio-economic
variables such as availability of markets, extension services or social customs are important to assess which valleys can be developed for agriculture (e.g. Narteh et al., 2007) and many of these
can simply not be mapped and must therefore be assessed using
terrain surveys and feasibility studies.

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

The Working Wetland Potential (WWP) index (McCartney and

Houghton-Carr, 2009) is a comprehensive assessment tool that
can be implemented at the valley scale to assess its suitability
for agricultural development. It consists of assessments on: (1)
the ecological potential, (2) the social and economic importance,
(3) the agricultural suitability and (4) the environmental and socio-economic risks involved in the actual development. The product of suitability and risk scores based on these assessments
results in the WWP index which provides an indication of the agricultural use-potential of an ecosystem. The best-bet inland valleys
for rice production should score high on (agricultural) production
and marketing potential and low on environmental and social
risks, and preferably also low on other ecosystem functions such
as biodiversity. Hence a thorough assessment of the valleys economic value for local communities, including direct, indirect and
non-use benets is required (Scoones, 1991) as well as an environmental systems analysis of upstream downstream impacts from
developments.
In conclusion, a two-step approach is advocated. First, spatial
modelling and analysis at national or sub-national level should
provide the location of the inland valleys and a rst indication of
the potential for development. Second, a detailed feasibility study
(we propose the aforementioned Working Wetland Potential
WWP index) must be implemented using eld and farmer
surveys to assess the true potential for development of the selected
inland valleys.

4.2. Participatory land use planning

After site selection, an inventory of land uses should be followed by the actual land use planning within a valley. For this step
to be successful, active participation of all important stakeholders
is required (e.g. Perfecto and Vandermeer, 2008; Del AmoRodriguez et al., 2010). Here, multi-criteria decision making
(MCDM) methods could be practised in recognition of the insight
that stakeholders are likely to base decisions on more than just
one criterion (e.g. Raj, 1995). The earlier mentioned WWP index,
which principally is an MCDM method, can again be used to evaluate the potential of different agricultural activities within the valley and to nd synergies, or at least compromises, between
different ecosystem services (McCartney and Houghton-Carr,
2009). Preferably all local stakeholders, including local authorities
and politicians, should play a role in the land use planning within a
selected inland valley and nd consensus on the directions to take.
To facilitate this process so-called multi-stakeholder platforms
(MSP) could be created. This is perhaps the most challenging part
of the approach, as getting all stakeholders around the table has
proven difcult in some situations (Warner, 2006) and reaching
consensus among a wide ranging group of stakeholders with different interests, might be another considerable hurdle to take. The
outcome such MSP processes should aim for would be to reach a
compromise between economic, social and environmental gains
and risks and the identication of hot-spots for specic ecosystem
services within the inland valley under consideration. The makeup of such a compromise would of course depend on the specic
values local stakeholders place on the services that the ecosystem
provide them with, relative to alternative income sources and
interest (McCartney and Houghton-Carr, 2009). The MSP process
should lead to a detailed strategic plan for the local land use of a
specic inland valley, with areas designated for agricultural production and areas that are maintained or managed to full other
ecosystem functions. This should result in the sort of spatially
and temporally mixed, land use forms that were earlier proposed
by Dixon and Wood (2003) and assumed to be inherently environmentally and socially sustainable.

4.3. Designing, implementing and evaluating best-t water

management
After these rst two, rather difcult and time-consuming, steps
of inland-valley selection and participatory planning, the actual
development, mainly consisting of clearing of vegetation and construction of irrigation and drainage structures to increase water
control, can start. As much as possible this work should involve
the future beneciaries of the development to enable them to acquire ownership. Information on the extent of participation in
the development work provided by an individual stakeholder can
be used to guide plot partitioning once the inland-valley development is nalized. Personal time investments at these stages will
also ensure user-commitment to future management and maintenance of the infrastructure and thereby benet the sustainability of
the inland-valley production system. In the Bltou valley in southwest Burkina Faso, for instance, an IVC project installed a contourbund system consisting of small water retention bunds along the
contour lines. A community-participatory development approach
was used, whereby plots were distributed among farmers,
according to their participation in the construction of these
water-management structures (Youssouf Dembl, personal communication). The active participation of farmers in the construction
reduced the costs of the investment and, more importantly, provided them with ownership. The plots were assigned in a participatory manner following each individuals contribution to the work.
This resulted in fair distribution of the plots based on group consensus, respecting individual time investments and disregarding
gender or age.
Clearly, every inland valley is unique in terms of biophysical
and socio-economic characteristics and there is no off-the-shelf
technology with a broad and indiscriminate application range.
Technologies for inland valleys must be locally adapted. For instance, the regulation of water e.g. to control ooding, optimize
irrigation, conserve water for late-season use requires a design
that takes local conditions into account. Various physical factors,
such as the size of the catchment area, the valley morphology
and soil texture (determining hydrological behavior) need to be
considered for the design of the most suitable water management
system. This requires a thorough diagnostic study on the spatial
and dynamic water movements within the valley (Wopereis
et al., 2007) followed by in-depth discussions with stakeholders
(preferably through a multi-stakeholder platform) to ensure full
buy-in of the community and to make sure that land tenure issues
are identied and solved beforehand. Inviting local politicians and
villages chiefs in such multi-stakeholder platforms is imperative in
this respect as they often have the responsibility or power to allocate land to land users. Discussions on the land and water development options that could be put in place should also consider
consequences for water availability for downstream users.
The rst steps towards improved water management in inland
valleys in Africa will be the construction of main and secondary
drainage pathways and outlining, bunding and levelling of individual elds with minimal soil movement. A valley with a slight slope
will result in fairly large bunded elds, whereas a valley with a
steep slope will lead to more terraced, bunded elds. The introduction of such very simple water management structures will already lead to substantial yield gains (12 t ha 1), especially if
accompanied with good crop management practices (e.g. Becker
and Johnson, 2001b; Toure et al., 2009). For this type of partial
water control structures, that can be developed entirely by farmers
themselves, Worou (2013) developed a useful guide.
To raise rice productivity with improved water control, relevant
modules of the curriculum for Participatory Learning and Action
Research (PLAR) for Integrated Rice Management (IRM) can be
implemented. PLAR-IRM was developed by AfricaRice and

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

partners, based on the insight that a locally adapted and integrated

approach is required to increase rice productivity in inland-valley
production systems in Africa (Wopereis and Defoer, 2007). It is
essentially a farmer participatory, step-wise approach to put inland valleys under rice production using good agricultural practices (Defoer et al., 2004; Wopereis et al., 2007). Farmers
involved in the Japanese funded SMART-IV project implemented
by AfricaRice and partners in Togo and Benin obtain very good results in inland valley settings, introducing relatively simple, lowcost water management structures (drainage canal development,
bunding, levelling) that can be constructed and maintained totally
by farmers themselves. Use of power tillers, while not essential at
the rst stage, can substantially speed up land development once
farmers are familiar with the technique.
If full water control is targeted, ve main water management
systems for inland valleys can be envisaged: (1) the traditional
random-basin system, (2) the central-drain system, (3) the interceptor-canal system, (4) the head-bund system and (5) the contour-bund system (for technical details see: Oosterbaan et al.,
1987; Windmeijer and Andriesse, 1993; Windmeijer et al., 2002).
Lidon et al. (1998) developed a diagnostic interactive tool called
DIARPA (diagnostic rapide de pr-amnagement; Eng.: rapid predevelopment diagnostics) which works as a decision tree and helps
to assess the best-t type of intervention at a given location and a
given level of investment, with the purpose to optimize agricultural production with limited hydraulic risks. While the technicalities of the choice of the water-control design and parts of the
actual implementation of the development may be beyond the resource-poor farmers capacities and expertise, we again stress the
importance of involvement of farmers in the activities that can
be carried out by them to gain the aforementioned necessary ownership over the water-control structures. Moreover, the proper
functioning, management and maintenance of the water-control
structures requires the actual users (i.e. the farmers) to understand
the basic principles. After completion of the water management
structures, a performance evaluation, similar to the one suggested
by Dembl et al. (2012), should be carried out on a seasonal basis
to enable farmers to make necessary adjustments and thereby further improve water productivity. This requires farmer training and
facilitation.
4.4. Optimizing productivity and protability
Following the selection of the inland valley, the land use planning within the selected inland valley and the development of that
part of the inland valley designated for agricultural production, the
last step is to establish and optimize crop production within these
designated areas. At this stage, a set of local constraints need to be
tackled in order to benet from the inherent inland-valley production potential. Simulations with physiological crop models (e.g.
ORYZA), and multi-criteria models (e.g. EPIC, farm household models) can be used to analyze productivity and sustainability of cropping systems, or to quantify effects of different stresses on crop
yield, and as such they can provide a decision support tool to improve management on the crop, farm or inland valley level (e.g.
Lansigan et al., 1997; Boling et al., 2007; Laborte et al., 2009;
Worou et al., 2012).
Following water management, key factors for raising productivity in inland valleys are weed and soil fertility management
(Wopereis and Defoer, 2007) and pest and disease control
(Table 1). However the order of importance of production constraints needs to be locally assessed for each inland valley. The
data collected during the aforementioned detailed characterization should be helpful in this respect. Such characterizations in
turn can guide the selection of technology interventions (e.g.
Sakan et al., 2011). The aforementioned PLAR-IRM curriculum

also provides a very useful method to identify key production

constraints, as well as locally researchable issues. PLAR-IRM further stimulates farmer experimentation in order to test what
works best under the given local (biophysical and socio-economic) conditions, using an integrated management approach.
The available modules of the PLAR curriculum provide guidelines
for such approaches from which facilitators and farmers can tap
to improve the local productivity. Through integrated water, soil
fertility and weed management in inland-valleys, rice yields can
increase considerably. Bunding, puddling (if possible) and levelling for instance, facilitates water management and decreases
weed competition as many weed species are not well adapted
to permanently ooded conditions (e.g. Kent and Johnson, 2001)
and generally increases nutrient use efciencies. These relatively simple technologies have shown to increase rice yields by
40%, and reduce weed infestation by 25% across agro-ecological
zones (Becker and Johnson, 2001b; Toure et al., 2009). Bunding,
levelling and puddling (mainly to improve water management)
is also proposed through Sawah system development (Abe and
Wakatsuki, 2011) a labor-intensive approach which basically promotes the aforementioned contour-bund system combined with
good agricultural practices. Further yield improvements can then
be attained by using improved rice cultivars. For instance, some
cultivars of NERICA (New Rice for Africa) adapted to lowland conditions have an inherent high weed competitiveness (Rodenburg
et al., 2009) and a high yield potential (Si et al., 2008). Following
such investments in crop productivity increases, one should also
aim at reducing post-harvest losses due to birds, insects and rodents, mainly by shortening the time between crop maturity
and harvest and storage and by improving transport and grain
storage facilities (e.g. Yusuf and He, 2011). Finally, conducive
policies ensuring good prices for producers on the local market,
are imperative for protable agricultural exploitation of inland
valleys (e.g. McMillan et al., 1998).

5. Conclusions regional potentials, local approaches

Tapping the regional potential of inland valleys in sub-Saharan
Africa requires development of high-potential and low-risk areas
that are yet unexploited, as well as improvement of already used
areas, through development of water management structures and
the use of improved crop management technologies. We propose
a step-wise and locally-adaptable stakeholder-participatory approach for site-selection, land-use planning, water management
design and implementation and crop management, to realize this,
while maintaining other important ecosystem functions of these
landscapes. A number of approaches, tools and technologies have
been developed over the past three decades that contribute to
achieving this. We propose: (1) the selection of best-bet inland
valleys, whether unexploited or already used, based on spatial
modelling and analysis at national or sub-national level (using
GIS and remote sensing tools) followed by more detailed typologies using the Working Wetland Potential (WWP) index, (2) a
stakeholder-participatory land use planning within the inland valley based on the earlier characterizations (notably the WWP index)
and using multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP), (3) participatory inland-valley development (e.g. clearing, levelling and construction
of water management structures) following guidelines developed
by Worou (2013), relevant modules of the Participatory Learning
and Action Research (PLAR) curriculum and the pre-development
diagnostic tool DIARPA followed by regular performance assessments of the water-control system, and (4) identication of local
production constraints combining model simulations and farmer
participatory priority exercises (e.g. PLAR), to select and adapt
appropriate management practices and technologies following

J. Rodenburg et al. / Agricultural Systems 123 (2014) 111

principles of Integrated Rice Management (IRM). While there is

some experience with the rst and the last two steps of this approach no published evidence exists yet showing that the second
step (e.g. formation of MSPs for detailed strategic planning) indeed
results in the desired sustainable use of inland valleys in Africa. Future research and development projects, like some of the current
ones carried out by AfricaRice and partners, should test and netune such approaches.
We conclude that it is essential to use systematic analyses approaches for the selection of best-bet inland valleys for rice production as only a fraction of the available inland valleys in Africa
would need to be used for agricultural production in order to attain
regional self-sufciency in rice. The remaining inland valleys could
then be safeguarded to full other ecosystem services. However,
for this strategy to be effective, an environmental impact assessment should be compulsory before any development takes place.
Conservation regulations and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms need to be established to help protecting those inland valleys that are either too vulnerable (e.g. to soil and water
degradation or social conicts) or too valuable (because of other
ecosystem functions such as biodiversity) for agricultural development. Selection of best-bet production valleys should be based on
both biophysical and socio-economic criteria and be broadly supported by the local communities depending on them. The same approach is proposed for the identication of locations within the
inland valley that should be used for crop production and those
that should continue to full any other ecosystem function. This
again requires involvement of local stakeholders. Following these
steps, the actual development is the next challenge. The right
choice of water-management system is of pivotal importance and
this depends largely on the valley morphology and the local soil
and hydrological characteristics. Development and implementation of such water management systems and the agricultural production practices following such development should not
negatively impact the water quality and availability downstream.
For the actual crop production, high-yielding and stress-resilient
lowland rice cultivars and locally adapted and integrated crop
management practices are required. Harvesting technologies and
post-harvest facilities, for drying, threshing, milling, storage and
transport should also be included in inland-valley development
plans.
For the sustainable realization of the regional potentials offered
by inland valleys in Africa, full local stakeholder participation is required in all stages, ranging from decision-making to development
and implementation. This should result in consensus on the selection and land use plans of inland valleys and the implementation of
broadly supported interventions and exible, locally adaptable,
and cultural and socio-economical acceptable solutions to the
numerous constraints encountered in inland valleys in this region.

Acknowledgements
The insights herewith presented have resulted from work of the
Inland Valley Consortium (IVC) and the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) and partners. We are indebted to all those who have contributed to this work over the past decades. This paper is dedicated to
our respected colleague Youssouf Dembl, who passed away so
untimely and unexpectedly. For many years he contributed invaluably to research and development of inland valleys in West Africa.

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