1) Irrigation accounts for 70% of global water withdrawal and 90% of water consumption, making it the major driver of water scarcity globally. 2) Achieving real water savings in agriculture requires considering irrigation efficiency across multiple scales, but faces many challenges including a lack of incentives for farmers to save water, undervalued irrigation water, and ineffective water governance. 3) The adoption of best available technologies (BAT) in developing countries is difficult due to challenges in financing infrastructure, lack of information, and need to adapt technologies to local conditions and address farmers' risk perceptions.

1. Challenges of Optimizing BAT Utilization in
Diverse Settings
Tingju Zhu
International Food Policy Research Institute
Washington, DC, USA
Making Every Drop Count: Best Technology for Sustainable Water Use in Agriculture
organized by the Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska
April 16, 2015, Daegu, Republic of Korea

2. Irrigation is the single largest user of
water globally
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Volume(km
3
/yr)
• Improvement of
agricultural water use
efficiency is usually a slow
and difficult process
• Irrigation accounts for 70 percent water withdrawal
and 90 percent water consumption globally
• Often seen as the major driver of water scarcity
• Wasteful use co-exists with water scarcity due to
inappropriate technologies, mismanagement, and
poor policy
• Achieving real water-saving in agriculture needs to
consider irrigation efficiency across scales

3. • Lack of Incentives: Farmers concern economic return
and production risks, not necessarily irrigation water-
saving
• Undervalued irrigation water
• Energy subsidies (for irrigation)
• Inflexible water allocation (e.g. water rights w/o markets)
• Ineffective water governance (e.g. GW regulation)
• Challenges in financing water infrastructure
• Repair, maintenance, and expansion of irrigation infrastructure
• Adoption of advanced technologies – drip and sprinkler (for
small farmers, e.g. in Asia)
• Rural electrification (e.g. northeastern India, Africa)
• Lack of information, esp. in developing countries
• Farmers’ risk perception
Challenges to BAT adoption

4. • Technologies need to be adapted to local settings
• Technologies need to go hand in hand with
agricultural extension (the latter is often more
important than the former)
• Move from water-saving to cost-effectiveness,
including labor-saving, energy-saving, higher yield and
better crop quality, and reduced production risks
• Information and institutional development
• Participatory management on system level and terminal
level
• Promote multiple use of irrigation water
BAT adoption in developing countries

5. • Promote rain-fed crop production
• Rainwater harvesting
• New crop varieties with higher water productivity
• High yield varieties
• Drought-tolerant varieties
• Sustainable land management
• Integrated soil fertility management
• Better soil and land management can increase water
productivity
• Precision agriculture
• Reduce post-harvest losses
• Improve transportation infrastructure
• Improve storage technologies
More crop per drop: beyond irrigation