Private irrigation predominates in the populated South, Southeast, and Center-West regions with most of the country’s agricultural and industrial development.
In the South, frosty conditions in winter have limited irrigation mainly to summer flooding of lowlands for rice production.
[2] The large size and level terrain of farms in the vast cerrado areas of the Center-West are well suited to center-pivot and self-propelled irrigation systems, which have expanded rapidly in the last few years.
Investment in the Northeast has traditionally been focused on crops such as corn or beans, and has moved to irrigated fruit production.
Its initial plan to increase the total irrigated area by 3.0 million ha, or 120%, in five years (1986–90) was scaled back due to technical and institutional constraints, cutbacks in the availability of federal and state funding, and uncertain macroeconomic conditions in Brazil.
[1] Field implementation of federally funded irrigation infrastructure was carried out by the Company for the Development of the Sao Francisco Valley (CODEVASF) and the National Department for Drought Defense Works (DNOS).
Since January 1999, irrigation affairs, including DNOS and CODEVASF, have been transferred to a "Special Secretariat for Regional Policies," which falls under the Ministry of National Integration.
The Ministry of National Integration deals mainly with irrigation and programs to promote the development of the country’s neediest regions.
Brazil underwent an important process of decentralization during the 1990s, allowing local governments to exert a strong influence on policy making.
Outside the government, civil society organizations, universities, and other research institutions play a very influential role in policy making.
[6] This project seeks to establish a public-private partnership (PPP) for irrigation infrastructure in an area of 7,717 hectares for commercial agriculture in the Pontal region, State of Pernambuco.
The private partner would operate, manage and further develop the infrastructure to ensure that the area is fully irrigated within six years.
This legislation states that water tariffs in public irrigation projects are estimated by the sum of two coefficients, Kl and K2.
Government investments have focused on the semi-arid Northeast area, with a high concentration of poor population.
For a farm size of 6.0 ha the investment per family is some US$40,000 on average, not including the cost of agricultural support services and operational subsidies.
The cost of public irrigation projects that provide water for large farmers and commercial farming enterprises (only the off-farm, main conveyance system) are considerably lower, depending on the distance of the irrigated area from the water source, the elevation of the command area, and the layout of the schemes.
Generally, investment costs for private irrigation are higher in the Northeast than in other regions due to more limited access to perennial sources of water.
According to an assessment by Krol and Van Oel for the State of Ceara, the direction of precipitation changes cannot be determined with certainty.
[9] In 2008, the Government of Brazil, represented by CODEVASF/Ministry of National Integration, is seeking help from the World Bank to prepare an environmental, social, and financial assessment for the concession of public irrigation perimeters in the Southeast region.
The focus of public projects evolved from socially based efforts to sustainable entrepreneurial activity; from subsistence farming to agribusiness; from traditional subsistence crops to highly technical fruit cultivation; and from conventional irrigation to modern localized and precision irrigation techniques.
Other factors that contributed to success were: (i) suitable scales and rates of implementation; (ii) ongoing political and financial support; (iii) skilled and creative executing agencies; (iv) adequate urban/municipal support; (v) effective technological support; (vi) proximity to markets and ports; (vii) aggressive, efficient marketing; (viii) organization of producers; (ix) organization and standardization of products; and (x) good management of primary production units.