On Pumps and Paradigms: Water Scarcity and Technology Adoption in Uzbekistan

Scientific research on irrigation in Uzbekistan has produced much knowledge on how to raise water use efficiency. However, most of the technologies developed have never been adopted by farmers. I consider technology as socially constructed and argue that water use research in Uzbekistan has been influenced by a discourse that attributes water scarcity to unsustainable, inefficient water use. Technologies developed to tackle this discursive scarcity often require long-term commitment and investment on a field level. In contrast, farmers experience water scarcity as a lack of technical, organizational, or sociopolitical water control. Under the political risk of losing their land, short-term planning dominates over sustainability concerns and farmers invest in social relations and a struggle for water with technology that is not connected with the land and does not conflict with agricultural norms. To develop adoptable solutions to water scarcity for and with farmers, scientific research needs to acknowledge local realities more.