Precision irrigation: what three farms in the Mitidja measured

Three market-garden farms in the Mitidja plain fitted drip irrigation with controlled scheduling on part of their land in March 2025. They agreed to publish their readings on one condition: raw figures, no consolidated average. The soils and the crops differ, and an average would produce a number nobody can reproduce.

Water use fell by 31%, 24% and 38%. The spread has less to do with the equipment than with the scheduling. The first farm installed tensiometric probes and waters on their reading; the other two kept a fixed calendar and simply water less often. Hardware alone does not account for half the saving.

Yield rose by 9% on average on the affected crops, with a 4% drop in the first season on the plot that changed variety at the same time. The usual reminder: two changes at once give a result you cannot attribute.

The investment ranges from 180,000 to 410,000 DZD per hectare depending on the terrain and the distance to the water source. All three put the payback between the third and fifth season, counting the water saved and the monitoring work that disappears. None of them included a public subsidy in the calculation, having seen no application clear before the end of the financial year.