| Résumé: |
L’irrigation permet une amélioration de la production agricole et une plus grande variété de produits alimentaires. Son application devrait pouvoir améliorer la qualité de vie des agriculteurs qui n’y avaient pas accès auparavant. Dans les Andes équatoriennes, un projet d’irrigation, le réseau Píllaro Ramal Norte, a vu le jour au début des années 2000. Cependant, l’analyse des données statistiques représentant les taux de maladies dans cette région a mis en avant un effet imprévu et négatif de l’irrigation : l’augmentation des maladies hydriques depuis la mise en place des canaux et réservoirs. En effet, grâce à ces derniers, situés à proximité des habitations, les populations locales ont un accès facilité à l’eau, en comparaison à la situation antérieure, où l’eau était plus difficile d’accès. Elles auront ainsi tendance à s’approvisionner en eau dans ces canaux pour leurs usages personnels. Cependant, cette eau agricole est mauvaise pour la consommation humaine, contrairement à l’eau utilisée auparavant, ce qui va amener à une augmentation des maladies hydriques /
Irrigation permits an improvement of crop production and a greater varity of produces. Its application should improve the quality of life of farmers who hadn’t access to it before. In the ecuadorian Andes, an irrigation system, the « Píllaro Ramal Norte » project, was created in the early 2000s. However, the analysis of statistic data representing diseases rates in the area has shown an unexpected and negative result of irrigation : the growth of waterborne diseases since canals and tanks were built. Indeed, due to those, located close to dwelling places, local populations have an easier access to water, in comparision with the previous situation, when water was more difficult to get. Local people tend to obtain water for personal use in these canals. This irrigation water is bad for human consumption though, unlike the water used before, what will lead to an increase of waterborne diseases.
This break unexpected from the project designers can be explained by a serie of factors taking place at different scales. Water has long been considered by man as a natural resource economically oriented, what puts aside other aspects of water, like its consumption by human beings. This very oriented perception of water is carried for decades by the different political currents that took place at international and national scales, and that strongly influence local interventions. Individual behaviors in terms of water supply are also conducted by several factors, like the rational choice furthering proximity to quality of water, together with other influences like agricultural stress or risks taking. Eventually, the form of the developement tool « project » is also oriented by the general context in which it has emerged.
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