Mwomboshi Irrigation Scheme – Chisamba

Mwomboshi Irrigation Scheme situated in Chisamba is one of the sites that was designated by the Government of the Republic of Zambia for a massive bulk water harvesting pilot project under the Irrigation Development Support Project, IDSP through the Ministry of Agriculture supported and funded by the World Bank.

Mwomboshi irrigation Scheme is unique in that it was designed to accumulate water into a Dam harvested from barricading a flowing Mwomboshi river. Water from this Dam would then be pumped to various pumping stations for irrigation. Mwomboshi is designed into a four Tier agricultural layout; Tier 1 for small scale farmers, Tier 2 for emerging farmers, Tier 3 for …such as the Zambia Correctional Services and the Zambia National service, and Tier 4 for the commercial farmers. This helps in the systematic allocation and distribution of water.

Of the three pilot irrigation scheme sites namely Mwomboshi, Musakashi and Lusitu by the Zambian Government, Mwomboshi is a man-made dam which has been in implementation since 2011 and stands as the flagship scheme of the Irrigation Development Support Project.

Mwomboshi Irrigation Scheme is located in Chisamba District approximately 30 kilometers to the northwest of the Chisamba Boma and extents about 4, 500 hectares to the north of the Mwomboshi reservoir

During the process of designing an irrigation process, the Government of the Republic of Zambia considered to pilot these developments at areas that were affected with intermittent rainfall patterns and needs expressed by farmers, Mwomboshi in the Chisamba district being one the areas.

It took several years of project implementation, construction and eventually availability of harvested bulk water ready to service the communities. This has come with a lot of changes to the landscape of Mwomboshi.

With most of the scheme architecture now laid to the ground and the Mwomboshi dam being the main element, 23 meters high and has collected water that will be expected to irrigate an area of approximately 5, 170 hectares, the project must now insure productivity and market linkages for the farmers at Mwomboshi.

Farmers at all the Tiers of Mwomboshi are now on the ground cultivating and growing potatoes, maize, onion, butternuts, tobacco and vegetables. This calls for discipline, good agricultural practices, consistency, protection to infrastructure, partnerships and linkage networking to markets is what will generate development at Mwomboshi.