Sustainable Water Management
Context:
- Managing water sustainably is essential to addressing concerns to future food and nutrition security.
First of all:
- This year’s World Food Day (October 16) theme, “Water is Life, Water is Food,” urges immediate action towards prudent water management.
- Every aspect of human life is impacted by the availability of water, particularly the security of food and nourishment. For example, rainfed agriculture accounts for around 60% of India’s net sown land and 40% of its overall food production.
Climate change, crop production, and water:
- Degradation covers over 40% of the planet’s land surface, giving farmers less productive land. More than 80% of farmers worldwide are small-scale farmers, who are particularly impacted because they frequently lack access to irrigation, funding, and technology needed to maintain a level of productivity that can support their livelihood.
- Agro-ecological conditions are changing, growing seasons are moving, and agricultural productivity is being negatively impacted by extreme weather events and water supply fluctuation. Increased temperatures and variations in rainfall also impact crop yield, which lowers the amount of food available.
- The Indian government has used crop simulation models and climate projections to evaluate the effects of climate change in 2050 and 2080. In the absence of adaptation strategies, it is predicted that India’s yields of rice that are rainfed will fall by 20% in 2050 and by 47% in 2080 scenarios, while those that are irrigated will fall by 3.5% in 2050 and 5% in 2080 scenarios. While kharif maize yields could decline by 18% and 23%, wheat yields are predicted to plummet by 19.3% in 2050 and 40% in 2080.
- Growing, eating, and selling high-value crops like nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables can help farmers alter their livelihoods. Irrigation can also be a useful tool for strengthening agriculture’s resilience. In this regard, the World Food Programme (WFP) provides food aid in return for employment to support the construction or repair of irrigation canals, dams, ponds, and dykes, as well as flood barriers. It also supports soil and water conservation.
Adaptation to Climate Change:
- In order to increase water use efficiency, the FAO also supports climate-smart agriculture techniques and the sustainable transformation of agrifood systems. It provided support to the Uttar Pradesh farmer water school initiative, which benefited smallholder farmers. Concurrently, a hydrological monitoring programme was part of the Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Groundwater Systems initiative, which reached out to 638 habitations in seven districts that were at risk of drought.
- In a similar vein, adaptation to climate change has been integrated into IFAD’s basic strategies.
- It established aggressive goals for utilising climate finance to lessen the effects of climate change. These included addressing the negative effects of agriculture and assisting farmers in adjusting to the heightened unpredictability of weather patterns, as well as investing in the preservation and restoration of soil health and water resources and fusing contemporary technology with traditional knowledge systems to create resilient and productive value chains and production systems. Projects in Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Nagaland, and Mizoram sponsored by IFAD
Moving ahead:
- Political commitment is just as important to achieving global food and nutrition security as actual financial investment.
- The necessary policies and investments must support: cutting-edge and tried-and-true technologies that enable farmers to boost productivity, adapt to climate change, and become more resilient to shocks; environmentally, socially, and economically viable irrigation and water management strategies; reduce their agricultural production’s climate footprint as well as biohazards and environmental pollution; and bring sanitation and drinking water supplies closer to rural areas.
