Managing the challenges in optimizing wetland management via sawah rice production: Abeokuta experience 1

Most developing countries particularly Sub-Sahara Africa in general have never been able to produce sufficient food to meeting the teaming population in spite of the abundance inland valleys which have great potential to be optimized without investment on expensive irrigation systems. Inland valleys show considerable potential for intensification and sustainable land use. The potential impact of this valley is related to the presence of water and total areas covered for the production of many food crops. However, they are only marginally utilized. New sawah rice production technology was established in Abeokuta 2010 and repeated in 2011 as demonstration plot in the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria to showcase the inherent potential and sustainable agricultural practice to the farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria. This paper therefore highlighted the natural abundance of the highly productive resources, yield potential, robustness, resilience and sustainable sawah rice based production technology that could be adopted by small scale farmers in Nigeria. It also emphasized the harrowing experiences during natural disaster (such as flood) and the associated problems such as weed infestation, diseases infections, rodents damage, more usage of fertilizer because the beneficial effect of sawah were hindered, lack of funding, poor post harvest facilities and poor marketing structures. The role of government policies in stabilizing agricultural produce, such as importation, subsidies and price support as it affects peasant farmers were discussed. Sawah rice technology has the potential of enhancing sustainability of inland valley if well managed and free from natural disaster