Revitalizing Irrigation

Revitalizing Irrigation
Adapted from IWMI Issue Brief #9
www.iwmi.org
www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Publications/Water_Issue_Briefs/index.aspx

More than9 billion people will inhabit the Earth by 2050

Asia and Africa are the two most populous continents on the planet: 60% of the world’s people live in Asia; 12% live in Africa
How will we feed ourselves?

We will need to grow more food
...and we will need to grow it more efficiently

With non-farm water requirements growing and little land left on which to expand agriculture…
...boosting productivity from existing irrigated lands is crucial

In the 1970s and 1980s, increased investments in irrigation helped lower food prices

But today, irrigation is stagnating...
...it is declining across Asia and is absent in much of Africa

IWMI’s position on revitalizing irrigation
In 2007, IWMI reported on the world’s future water needs in Water for food, water for life: A comprehensive assessment of water management in agriculture

What were the main conclusions?
Sub-Saharan Africa needs investments in infrastructure and institutions, and greater success with those investments

in Asia, greater yields can be extracted from existing irrigation

So...
Revitalizing irrigation across these continents is the key to ensuring future food security

What needs to be done?
ASIA

Asia’s irrigation infrastructure has stagnated in recent decades

Farmers are growing a wider range of crops than the old staples of rice and wheat
Millions of farmers are pumping groundwater when and where they choose

In 2009, IWMI scientists looked at how Asia– home to 70% of the world’s 277 million hectares of irrigated land – could boost its agricultural productivity

?
Using a computer model named WATERSIM (http://tinyurl.com/33lxqcq), the researchers investigated how food production, water use and irrigation requirements might change, given certain economic and environmental conditions

The result?
Three quartersof the additional food supply required in Asia could be met by boosting performance from existing irrigated areas

The result?
The study was published in 2009 in Revitalizing Asia’s Irrigation: To sustainably meet tomorrow’s food needs, which proposes investment strategies designed to reinvigorate irrigation across Asia

The new farming requires demand-driven water supplies…
…not the supply-driven allocations of the old systems

The strategies
Modernizing irrigation schemes for tomorrow’s needs
Supporting farmers’ self-installed irrigation schemes
Expanding capacity and knowledge

What needs to be done?
AFRICA

In sub-Saharan Africa, irrigation covers only 5%of the total cultivated area of 183 million hectares – the lowest proportion of any region in the world

In 2007, Investment in Agricultural Water for Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa* made recommendationsto funding agencies
* A collaborative program of the African Development Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IWMI and the World Bank

Recommendations for Sub-Saharan Africa
Increase investment in irrigation and other agricultural water-management methods, from large- to small-scale infrastructure
Ensure that benefits from new initiatives reach the poor, especially women

Currently in West Africa...
IWMI is leading a project to diagnose underperformance of irrigation schemes in Burkina Faso and Niger
The United States Agency for International Development, governments and other stakeholders will use the results to boost production of the schemes by up to 50%

There are other ways to producemore crop per drop in Asia and Africa:
Land rehabilitation
Integrated approaches at the farm scale
Integrated approaches at the landscape scale

Land rehabilitation
Waterlogging and salinization can be managed through on-farm remediation
This is more affordable than conventional salinity control measures, and also use less water

Land rehabilitation
Bright Spots, a project undertaken by IWMI and partners, assessed the vegetative bioremediation of saline and sodic soils and the rehabilitation of abandoned lands in Central Asia
The project promoted useful plant species to lower saline water tables and rehabilitate salt-affected soils
See http://brightspots.centralasia.iwmi.org

Land rehabilitation
Bright Spots also evaluated the use of marginal quality drainage waters for crop production and promoted techniques for managing soil salinity

Integrated approaches at the farm scale…
Allocating water supplies for multiple uses – such as drinking water, livestock rearing, crop irrigation and fisheries – can increase efficiency…

Integrated approaches at the farm scale…
For example: storage ponds for controlling water deliveries can be used to farm fish, boosting family nutrition and providing extra income

Integrated approaches at the landscape scale…
Maintaining vital ecosystem services by managing non-farmed land – such as wastelands, rivers and wetlands – maximizes productivity through smarter application of technology and an emphasis on ecosystem-wide sustainability

Where to from here?
“More than anything, irrigation must respond to changing requirements, serving an increasingly productive agriculture”
From Water for food water for life: a comprehensive assessment of water management in agriculture, 2007

Water Issue Briefs highlight issues of concern to professionals working in water and land resources management and related fields
For more information: www.iwmi.org/Publications/Water_Issue_Briefs/index.aspx
IWMI-ScienceBriefs@cgiar.org
Improving the management of land and water resources for food, livelihoods and the environment

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Revitalizing Irrigation

by International Water Management Institute (IWMI) on Feb 23, 2011

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