Farming

Drop by

Drop

Water for agriculture is getting

scarcer and there’s more scrutiny

on every drop used.

“IthInk that the converSatIonS around food scarcity will be dwarfed in the future by water utilization,” predicts Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant. By 2025, the UN predicts 66% of the global population will be living in either drought or water-stressed conditions. Given that agriculture is a major consumer of global freshwater, steps are necessary to reduce water consumption by crops, such as changes in irrigation management and cropping practices.

“It is highly unlikely that the world will be able to feed its expanding population in 40 years time unless we start to ramp up investments in agriculture and natural resources,” says Colin Chartres, Director General of the International Water Management Institute. The Sri Lanka-based institute is affiliated with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

“Water, along with sunlight, fertilizers and good soil, is a fundamental input to agricultural productivity increases,” says Chartres. “Future agricultural productivity increases will depend on us being able to supply sufficient water for irrigation and on the better management of rain-fed agricultural systems.”

Years of serious drought in Australia led the national government to step in and replace the regional governments with a single water authority in the important Murray-Darling

Basin. “Governments will have to sweep away traditional and outmoded institutional arrangements for water governance and commit to a robust reform process just as is happening in the Murray-Darling Basin,” according to Chartres. “Without such an across-the-board commitment to investment and reform, the dinner table will look very bare for an increasing number of people.” The Murray-Darling Basin Authority faces grim news as Murray inflows between January and March were the lowest in 117 years and the outlook for the next three months was also bleak.

Chartres calls for an immediate doubling of investment in funding for agricultural R&D.

However, he says that as well as using this money to deliver research outputs that can be turned into improved productivity and livelihoods on the ground, much attention needs to be given to training a new generation of scientists and engineers capable of implementation of innovation in agriculture.

The private sector is trying to respond. “The plant science industry is committed to helping to reduce the water footprint of crop production,” says Howard Minigh, CEO and President of CropLife International. “Modern agriculture using plant science has already made considerable gains in reducing water use in crop production.” For example, to grow a bushel of corn in