Niono is an important town of the Office du Niger irrigation scheme which was established during the last decades of French colonial rule and continued after independence by the Malian state.

The water flows north for 65 km in the Canal du Sahel and is then used to irrigate the flat alluvial plains around Niono that form part of the 'Delta Mort' (Dead Delta).

Although the French colonial administration constructed the system to produce cotton for the textile industry, the main agricultural product is now rice.

[5] The water is used to irrigate about 750 square kilometers of farmland which in 1999/2000 produced 320,000 tonnes of rice representing 40 percent of the total Malian production.

Led by American and Malian Rotary Clubs and Engineers Without Borders (USA) Chapters, the groups surveyed in February 2008 a rainwater drainage channel.

[10] The completed 81 km section between Niono and the small village of Goma Coura in the commune of Dogofry[11] was financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation.