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Transcript of Feeding a Thirsty World 2012 - worldwaterweek Report 31
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Fding a Thirsty World
Challngs and Oortunitis or a
Watr and Food Scur Futur
RepORT 31
This report has been prepared
as input to the 2012 World Water
Week and its Special Focus on
Water and Food Security.
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Copyright © 2012, Stockholm InternationalWater Institute, SIWI
ISBN: 978-91-978846-5-5
ISSN: 1404-2134
How to Cite: Jägerskog, A., Jønch Clausen, T. (eds.) 2012.
Feeding a Thirsty World – Challenges and Opportunities or a
Water and Food Secure Future. Report Nr. 31. SIWI, Stockholm.
Cover photo: iStockphotoDesign by Britt-Louise Andersson and Elin Ingblom, SIWI
Printing by Elanders, Mölnlycke, Sweden. The
printing process has been certied according to
the Nordic Swan label or environmental quality.
For electronic versions o this and other SIWI
publications, visit www.siwi.org.
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Not to th Radr
Today, in 2012, nearly one billion people still suer rom hunger and mal-
nourishment, in spite of the fact that food production has been steadily
increasing on a per capita basis or decades. Producing ood to eed eve-
ryone well, including the 2 billion additional people expected to populate
the planet by mid-century, will place greater pressure on available waterand land resources.
This report provides input into the discussions at the 2012 World Water
Week in Stockholm, which is held under the theme o Water and Food Se-
curity, and was edited by Anders Jägerskog, Director, Knowledge Services
at SIWI, and Torkil Jønch-Clausen, Chair o the World Water Week Scientic
Programming Committee. It features brief overviews of new knowledge and
approaches on emerging and persistent challenges to achieve water and
food security in the 21st century. Each chapter focuses on critical issues that
have received less attention in the literature to date, such as: ood waste,
land acquisitions, gender aspects o agriculture, and early warning systems
or agricultural emergencies. It is our hope that the articles provoke concern
and inspire action where needed.
Contributing authors o the chapters are Malin Falkenmark, Ana Cascão,
Mats Eriksson, Josephine Gustafsson and Jan Lundqvist of SIWI; Sibyl Nelson,
Ilaria Sisto, Eve Crowley and Marcela Villarreal o the Food and Agricultural
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and Mark Giordano, Tushaar
Shah, Charlotte de Fraiture, and Meredith Giordano rom the International
Water Management Institute (IWMI). The production of the report was made
possible through the support rom the Swedish International DevelopmentCooperation Agency (Sida) and the International Fund or Agricultural De-
velopment (IFAD).
P h o t o : D a
v i d B r a z i e r / I W M I
Introduction 6
Thmatic Sco o th 2012 World Watr Wk 10
Food Scurity: Ovrcoming Watr Scarcity Ralitis 13
Innovations in Agricultural Watr Managmnt:
Nw Challngs Rquir Nw Solutions 19
Womn in Agricultur: Closing th Gndr Ga
or Dvlomnt 25
Food Suly Chain efcincy “From Fild to Fork”:
Finding a Nw Formula or a Watr and Food Scur World 31
early Warning Systms or Watr in Agricultur 39
Land Dals: A ‘Grn Rvolution’ in Global Food andenrgy Markts? 45
Tabl o Contnts
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7
P h o t o : M a t s L a n n e r s t a d
The “water” actor
urning to the water and ood security challenge,
the statistics speak or themselves. I today we still
ace the challenges o eeding one billion under-
nourished people out o a total population o 7 bil-
lion people, how do we achieve ood security or a
world population that is expected to reach 9 billion
in 2050? FAO predicts this will require that we in-
crease ood production by 70 per cent by mid-century.
Tis will place additional pressure on our already stressed water resources, at a time when we also need
to allocate more water to satisy global energy demand
– which is expected to rise 60 per cent over the coming
30 years – and to generate electricity or the 1.3 billion
people currently without it.
Te answer is not simple and has many acets.
We can ocus our attention on the production and
supply, looking at how we can cope with the increasing
stress on our water resources, their variability and the
impact o climate change; we can look at the demand
to see how good demand management can increase
water and energy eciency in ood production, in-
cluding getting “more crop per drop”; and we can
look at the entire chain rom “eld to ork” and see
how to reduce the 30-50 per cent o ood that is lost
and wasted rom harvest to consumption. Tis is a
troubling statistic: with all our eorts to improve
eciency, increase yields and raise production in the
eld we sacrice hal o it in avoidable losses in the
early part o the ood chain, and wastage in the latter.
Te bad news is that we are wasteul; the good news isthat means i we reduce waste we can eed everybody
without additional resource use.
Addressing the challenges related to “water and
ood security”, through the entire chain rom pro-
duction to benecial use and waste, calls or ocus
on a wide range o technical, economic, nancial,
institutional, governance and political issues, with the
“triple bottom line” o economic development, social
equity and environmental sustainability guiding us.
No single event can accord ull justice to all issues,
but the World Water Week in Stockholm shall try
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8
to cover as many aspects as possible and provide a
platorm or dialogue between all relevant stakeholder
groups rom academia, government, the private sector
and civil society rom all parts o the world.
World Water Week in Stockholm
– and this publication We have attempted to do this through the Tematic
Scope o the Week (see page 10), which covers the
ollowing key issues: increasing water eciency in all
aspects o ood production; linking ood production
to human health and ecosystem services; paying more
attention to the ood supply chain – rom eld to ork;
securing water and ood security in an urbanising
world; moving towards a green economy – recognising
the water-ood-energy nexus; trading ood and virtual
water; and building new partnerships or knowledgeand good governance. Tese issues will be covered
in workshops, seminars and side events during the
week, and hopeully leave us all somewhat wiser, and
better equipped to help eradicate ood insecurity in
the world.
Tis publication provides brie overviews o new
knowledge, thinking and approaches on emerging
and persistent challenges to achieve ood security in
the 21st century. It ocuses on critical issues that havereceived less attention in the literature to date, such
as: ood waste, land acquisitions, gender aspects o
agriculture, and early warning systems or agricultural
emergencies. It also oers perspectives on how to better
manage water and ood linkages.
Te ood challenge as seen rom the water perspec-
tive is presented by Malin Falkenmark who outlines
how the competition or water between ood produc-
tion and other uses will intensiy pressure on essential
resources. She argues or an integrated approach toidentiy competing demands and assess trade-os
between dierent uses.
Mark Giordano, ushaar Shah, Charlotte de Fraiture,
and Meredith Giordano rom the International Water
Management Institute (IWMI), the 2012 Stockholm
Water Prize laureate, discuss water and society rom
a governance perspective. Tey suggest that while
there may be a scientically rational way to address
certain water and ood challenges, in the real world o
complex socio-politics the politically easible “second
best” solutions are oten the realistic ones. P h o t o : E d
e l p i x
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9
Sibyl Nelson, Ilaria Sisto, Eve Crowley and Marcela
Villarreal zoom in on the issue o gender and agri-
culture and explain that one o the reasons why the
agricultural sector underperorms in developing coun-
tries is that men and women do not have equal access
to resources and opportunities. While the central role
o women in water management was highlighted threedecades ago in the 1992 Dublin Principles, progress
has been slow.
Josephine Gustasson and Jan Lundqvist explore the
ood supply chain and highlight how increasing the
ecient use o ood, by reducing losses and curbing
consumer waste, can save water. Tey also note how
prevailing policies and practices encourage a culture
o waste and overeating, which places unsustainable
pressure on both ertile land and water to produce
much more ood than is actually needed to sustain a healthy global population.
Mats Eriksson addresses the challenge o adapting
ood production to water availability in the ace o high
rainall variability, which may become more erratic as
the climate changes. He discusses how Early Warning
Systems (EWS) can identiy coming shortages o both
water and ood in various regions o the world, but
P h o t o : T h
o m a s H e n r i k s o n
stresses that institutional linkages and capacity must
be developed in national and international agencies
to utilise these warnings to take preemptive action.
Te chapter shows how the recent amine in the Horn
o Arica was oreseen by several alerts beore the
crisis hit, but did not trigger the required response.
Tis clearly demonstrates that EWS systems need to beaccompanied by appropriate governance mechanisms
and political will by decision-makers to act beore it is
too late. Vulnerable populations also must be better
prepared and aware o the actions they can take upon
receiving inormation rom EWS systems.
In the nal chapter, Anders Jägerskog and Ana
Cascão investigate the recent increase in the acquisition
o land in oreign countries, primarily targeting
Arica but also happening in Latin America and Asia.
Tey note that land contracts and agreements rarely include provisions or water. Access to the water needed
to grow ood or bio-energy on the land seems to be
taken or granted. Concluding that land investments
will impact local and in some cases regional water
resources, they argue that land lease contracts must
be more transparent and include explicit regulations
or the use and protection o water.
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10
Increasing water efciency in all aspects o
ood production
A more productive use o limited, highly demanded
and unreliable water resources is necessary. In most
debates, an increase in water productivity is associated
with a more ecient irrigation. Tis is important.
But it must be complemented with better use o local
rains combined with small scale supplemental irriga-
tion. A better coordination between land and waterresource management, with strong and early involve-
ment o armers is vital. Tis requires nancial and
policy support to armers and armers’ organisations
rom authorities and private actors.
While improved ‘green water’ management will
contribute to meeting the increased ood demand,
investments in ‘blue water’ inrastructure, such as
dams and irrigation systems, are still needed. Tese
investments need to ensure optimal returns to society at large, including more ‘jobs per drop’.
A large proportion o the world’s ood production
is based on un-sustainable exploitation o groundwater
that at the same time are threatened by increasing
pollution by agro-chemicals.
Thmatic Sco o th 2012 World Watr Wk
Given the increasing variability o rainall, armers
need systems or early warning o drought risks, as well
as early inormation on opportunities or promising
cultivation seasons. Improvements in modelling and
data compilation and dissemination can provide timely
guidance to armers about likely water situations at
various time and geographical scales.
Producing more staple crops alone does not increase
ood security. Diversication is vital or armers to
be able to sell their produce at decent prices. It also
oers the possibility to use variable water resources
more eciently, contributing to stronger resilience
to climate change.
Linking ood production to human health
and ecosystem services
Water or ood production, as or any other use, needs
to be considered and managed in terms o both quantity and quality. An obvious win-win between the two is the
sae re-use o wastewater and the recognition o aecal
products as resources rather than waste. Eective water
and nutrient use in rural and urban agriculture, con-
trolling ‘point’ and ‘non-point’ pollution rom the
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11
ood chain, sae reclamation o wastewater or local
ood production, and reduced leakage o nutrients are
important aspects o agricultural water management.
Multi-unctional use o land and ecosystems, e.g.
through payment or ecosystem services, improves the
incentives or ood production in tune with nature.
Water interventions or ood security, at production
and household levels, need to ocus on improved nutri-
tion, better health, critical bio-diversity and sustainable
livelihoods, achieving co-benets or environmental as
well as human health. Te ood production in the world
is more than enough to eed all its inhabitants properly.
Yet, a billion are undernourished, around two billion
are overeating, and staggering amounts o ood are lost
or wasted. In addition, ood alone will not eradicate
hunger as up to 50 per cent o malnutrition is related to
unclean water, inadequate sanitation or poor hygiene.
Paying more attention to the supply chain
– rom feld to ork
Tere is no such thing as a post-agricultural society.
But society outside agriculture is expanding. Percep-
tions about ood, water and lie support systems are
changing with the growth o the urban population,
oten disconnected rom ood production. Tis con-
text calls or increased attention to supply chain is-
sues. It is in the interest o producers, consumers and
society at large to ensure that agricultural produce
is optimally used.
Urbanisation and a growing auence alter the
ood demand towards more resource intensive di-
ets. Geographical distance between producers andconsumers increase the need or better post-harvest
operations. oday, a large and growing raction o
the ood produced is either lost, converted or wasted.
Tere are enormous imbalances and signicant syn-
ergies at the water and ood nexus.
Securing water and ood security
in an urbanising world
Urban areas are the engines o economic growth andrely heavily on water, energy and ood to sustain this
growth. Many cities in developing countries ace the
challenges o water scarcity and ood insecurity, with
major impacts on the urban poor, especially women
and children. Furthermore, many agricultural practices
P h o t o : J u p i t e r i m a g e s
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13
P h o t o : A l a s t a i r M o r r i s o n ,
S I W I
Food Scurity: Ovrcoming Watr Scarcity Ralitis
By Malin Falkenmark
Te ollowing chapters in this publication will address water and ood security in a broad perspective.
Tey will stress its link to both urban growth and
virtual water, and highlight the mounting pressure on
scarce water and land resources, the considerable ood
losses, and the need or promotion o a water saving
society. Tis chapter will put ocus on the reality we
ace o a growing water scarcity, and use a back-casting
perspective to analyse our prospects and options or
ensuring that water scarcity does not constrain our
ability to achieve global ood security in 2050. It looksinto key questions, such as: What will the crop water
availability situation look like in 2050? How important
will virtual water fows be? How can we balance
competing demands rom urban and other uses?
What essential diculties will we need to overcome?
Food production consumes water
Food is produced through the photosynthesis process
by which plants manuacture carbohydrates. Water
constitutes one o the two required raw materials –
carbon dioxide being the other.
Water is absorbed by the roots rom the store o inltrated rain in the soil, which is oten called the
green water resource. Substantive amounts o water are
consumed as crops grow; each person requires 50 to 100
times more water to produce the ood they eat than
they use in their home. One undamental condition
or good yields is that the roots gain access to enough
green water to allow or an ecient photosynthesis.
Tis green water is a local resource that is available to
the armer. o avoid crop water deciency, blue water
rom rivers or aquiers may be added by irrigation.Farmers will have to compete or that water, since it
is the key resource or other societal unctions, includ-
ing water supply, industry and energy production.
Continued population growth in large regions with
limited rainall will creates dilemmas in the uture as
the competition or blue water escalates.
What will the water availability situation look
like in 2050?
A country’s ability to produce ood is limited by the
amount o available water on its croplands. In order
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14
to compare the availability o cropland water with
ood water requirements in 2050, a series o model-
based studies have been carried out at Stockholm
University in cooperation with PIK , Berlin, using the
well-established pixel based LPJml dynamic global
vegetation and water balance model (Gerten et al .
2004). Tis model assumed climate change will ollow the A 2 scenario and population will grow according
to UN medium projection (Falkenmark et al 2009;
Rockström et al. 2009, 2010, 2011). Water availability
on current croplands was integrated into country-
based availability data (green water was calculated as
inltrated cropland rainall, blue water was calculated
as current irrigation, and allowed only a 15 per cent
expansion to limit urther undermining o aquatic
ecosystems). Te available water was compared with
ood water requirements o dierent diet compositions,
with meat requirements in line with country-based
balancing o red vs. white meat. It also assumed a 25
per cent yield gap closure. In the analysis, the water
rich countries were assumed to produce surplus ood
to allow water short countries to compensate their
carrying capacity overshoot by import, which is now
oten described as ‘virtual water transer’. Estimations
o purchasing power were based on World Bank clas-
sication (World Bank, 2009). Tree dierent dietcombinations were analysed,
1. Food production in line with current dietary trends
(3,000 kcal/p d, 20 per cent animal ood);
2. A diet in line with current trends but a reduction
o meat consumption (3,000 kcal/p d, 5 per cent
animal ood)
3. Te ood intake required asuming that all losses
could be avoided (c Gustasson & Lundqvist inthis volume).
Te analysis showed that there will not be enough water
available on current croplands to produce ood or
the expected population in 2050 i we ollow current
trends and changes towards diets common in Western
nations (3,000 kcal produced per capita, including 20
per cent o calories produced coming rom animal
proteins). Tere will, however, be just enough water,
i the proportion o animal based oods is limited to5 per cent o total calories and considerable regional
water decits can be met by a well organised and reli-
able system o ood trade.
Water scarcity problems to overcome
Te table shows a correlation between low national
income and cropland water deciency. Tere is no
low income country with cropland water surplus.
Tese countries are thereore dependent on getting access to water or ood rom elsewhere. Te growing
Table 1. Accumulated global scale country-based water deciencies and surpluses on current cropland asoreseen by 2050 (Source: Rockström et al ., 2012)
Diet
kcal/cap, day
Income Defciency
km3/yr
Surplus
km3/y
Policy
Implication
3,000
20% animal
protein
Low -1,086 0Impossible
alternativeMedium + high -2,504 1,400
3000
5 % animal
protein
Low -724 0Horizontal
expansion
Medium + high -1,359- 1,954 Import
2,200
5 % animal
protein
Low -381 6Horizontal
expansion
Medium + high -469 2,373 Import
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15
Figure 1. Per cent o global population living in areas with blue and/or green water shortages in 2050(source Rockström et al ., 2011).
predicament o water scarcity is urther demonstrated
in Figure 1. It shows that only one-third (14+19 per
cent) o the world population will have enough avail-
able green water to allow or ood sel-suciency rom
rained agriculture and that three-ths (46+14 per
cent) will ace diculties to access to irrigation water
(chronic blue water shortage) (Rockströmet al.,
2011).Te numbers suggest that water shortage will develop
into a very real challenge or the next generation, with
almost hal the world population living in chronic
water shortage.
Tus water scarcity may be expected to be impor-
tant to ood production or 2050 rom two perspectives:
• Wherethereisgreenwaterscarcity,irrigationwill
be essential (by 2050 67 per cent o the world popu-
lation) but will ace increasing competition or the
blue water with other societal sections.• Wherethereisbothgreenandbluewaterscarcity(46
per cent o the world population), competition or
blue water may be increasingly critical to cope with.
Water sharing through virtual water transer
Figure 2 (page 16) compares the outcome o two op-
posite production alternatives:
1) 3,000 kcal/per capita and day with a reduction o
the proportion o animal based oods to 5 per cent;
2) 2,200 kcal/per capita and day with a reduction o
the proportion o animal based oods to 5 per cent.
Te blue colours indicate the number o people living
in water surplus countries with potential possibility
to export, the green represents those dependent on
import due to water deciency, and red shows the
amount o people oreseen to be living in water short
regions that can not aord to import ood. Te sectors
reer to dierent economic situations according to the World Bank’s classication o countries.
wo essential conclusions emerge rom this analy-
sis: First, the virtual water transer component will
have to increase considerably in order to compen-
sate oreseeable carrying capacity overshoot. Second,
in low income countries (the second bar in Figure
2), horisontal cropland expansion will probably be
impossible to avoid. Tis then poses several unda-
mental questions that need to be addressed, such as:
How can a reliable virtual water transer system bedeveloped? What rules would be needed? Will the
better endowed countries in act be able (and willing)
to produce the necessary ood surplus or export?
How will oreign land acquisition aect the picture?
What urther constraints need to be analysed to under-
stand the actual capacity to grow ood? Which water
and land resources will be unt or ood production
rom climates that are too cold or other actors? How
much cropland area will shrink due to urbanisation
and what will be the impact? How will biouel produc-
tion aect the situation?
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As more people move to and densely congregate in
cities, they place more pressure and demand or water.
At high levels o water crowding (low per capita water
availability), blue water allocation will become more
complicated. Wastewater reuse will be increasingly
essential. At a water crowding level that exceeds 2,500
people per fow unit o one million m
per year (400m per capita and year), a municipal/industria l (M/I),
supply level o 200 m per year – a level o water use
that, as recently as the 1990’s was not seen as wasteul
(Lundqvist and Gleick, 1997) – would not allow any
irrigation at all. Only by reducing the M/I-supply
could water or irrigation be aorded. Te “three H
basins” in China, (Hai, Huai and Yellow river basins)
oers an example. In this silt-laden region, blue water
or environmental fow is seen as essential to meet the
requirements or river based unctions and processes,including the fushing o silt. Reserving some 30 per
cent o the river fow or this purpose (Falkenmark
and Xia, 2012), would involve a limiting o the M/I
allocation to around 90 m/per year.
Balancing our dependence on irrigation with
other water users
Large breadbasket regions in the world are heavily
dependent on irrigation. Currently, 80 per cent o global agricultural water use comes directly rom green
water with the remaining 20 per cent coming rom
blue water sources (CA, 2007). Altogether 3,830 km/
year o blue water is used, out o which 1,570 km is
consumed. About 1,000 km/year originates rom
groundwater. wo problems complicate uture ood
production there: groundwater overexploitation and
river fow depletion.
Te expansion and reliance on groundwater has
been increasing in agriculture. Large scale non-sus-tainable groundwater overexploitation exacerbates
the existing irrigation problems. In the last 50 years,
the groundwater depletion has doubled and is now
in the order o 300 km per year – that is enough to
provide a subsistence diet to almost 1 billion people!
Tree large groundwater aquiers have attracted par-
ticular interest: the Ogallalla aquier in USA , the
North China Plain and Gujarat in northwest India.
Te uture use o these plains is a question that will
impact the livelihoods o millions. Kendy and Scanlon
(in Rockström et al 2012) report that irrigation o the
Ogallalla will have to stop altogether. In the North
China plain, they will have to decrease its irrigated area
to stabilise the water table, but while doing so they will
need to nd ways to maintaining social stability by
continuing agricultural production by synchronising
crop production with rainall.
Surace water irrigation in some cases is also un-sustainable due to river fow depletion and regional
climate aridication. Te vulnerability o 10 major
monsoon river basins in Asia-Pacic region were re-
cently analysed by Varis et al (2011), who combined
average water stress with ve other vulnerability indi-
cators (governance, economy, social, environmental,
hazards). Tey concluded that Ganges and Indus have
the highest river basin vulnerability. Demand-driven
water stress was high in Yellow river basin and very
high in the Indus basin. It is worth noting that all three
basins have already reached high levels o (population-
driven) water crowding and suer rom severe water
shortage. In closed river basins where water crowding
is high, economic development is particularly challeng-
ing. One example is the Limpopo basin in the SADC-
region, which is on track to reach a water crowding
rate o almost 5,000 people per fow unit by 2025 (200
m per capita and yea, urton & Botha, 2012), but is
predicted to ace more than double the current waterdemands over the same time period. o achieve water
security under extreme cases o water shortages, water
governance will critically depend on strong leadership.
Otherwise, conficts and competition over water may
trigger social instability and unrest as people lose their
source o livelihoods that depend on water resources.
Looking ahead, shiting thinking
In the uture, an integrated approach to land and water
will be needed to navigate our competing demands or,and shared dependence upon, available green water
and blue water provided in the basin. Finding the
best path or sustainable ood production requires an
understanding o the resource requirements rom cit-
ies, industrial use, energy production and or sucient
environmental fow in the river to maintain healthy
habitats or reshwater and coastal aquatic ecosystems.
Tis calls or a shit in thinking that is based upon
sequential reuse along a river system.
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18
Reerences
Comprehensive Assessment o Water Management in
Agriculture. (2007) Water for Food, Water for Life:
A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Manage-
ment in Agriculture. London: Earthscan, and Co-
lombo: International Water Management Institute.Falkenmark, M. and Rockström, J., (2008). Building
resilience to drought in desertication-prone
savannas in sub-Saharan Arica: The water per-
spective. Natural Resources Forum 32 (2008)
93–102.
Falkenmark, M. and Xia, J.(2012). Urban water sup-
ply under expanding water scarcity. Chapter 5 in
Wastewater Treatment: Source Separation and
Decentralisation. Eds: Tove A. Larsen, Kai M. Udert
and Judit Lienert, IWA, In press.
Falkenmark, M. and Lannerstad, M. (2010) Food
security in water short countries – Coping with
carrying capacity overshoot. In: L.Martinez-Corina
et al, Eds. Rethinking water and food security.
Fourth Botín Foundation Water Workshop.
CRC Press, Taylor&Francis group. pp 3-22.
Falkenmark, M. and Molden, D. (2008) Wake up to
realities o river basin closure. International Journal
of Water Resources Development 24, 201-215.Falkenmark, M.,et al. (2009). Present and uture
water requirements or eeding humanity. Food
Security 1(1): 59-69.
Gerten et al (2004). Terrestrial vegetation and water
balance: hydrological evaluation o a dynamic
global vegetation model. International Water
resources Development, 286:249-270.
Gustasson, J. and Lundqvist, J. This volume.
Jonch-Clausen, T. This volume.
Kendy and Scanlon (2012). A tale o two plains:Consequences o groundwater depletion in the
US Central High Plains and the North China Plain.
Box 3.8 in Rockström et al (2012) Conronting the
water challenge in a turbulent world. Cambridge
University Press.
Lundqvist, J. and Gleick, P. (1997). Sustaining Our
Waters into the 21st Century. Stockholm Environ-
ment Institute. Stockholm.
Lundqvist, J. and Falkenmark, M. (2011). Adaptation
to rainall variability and unpredictability – Newdimensions o old challenges and opportunities.
International Journal of Water Resources Develop-
ment, December 2010.
Rockström, J., M. Falkenmark, et al. (2009). Future
water availability or global ood production: The
potential o green water or increasing resilience to
global change. Water Resources Research 45.
Rockström et al. (2012) Conronting the water chal-
lenge in a turbulent world. Cambridge University
Press.
Rockström, J. et al (2011). Global ood production in
a water-constrained world: Exploring ‘green’ and
‘blue’ challenges and solutions. In Water Resourc-
es Planning and Management, (eds) Q.Graton
and K.Hussey (2011). Cambridge University Press.
Turton, A.R. & Botha, F.S. (2012) New thinking on an
anthropocenic aquier in South Arica. In Eslamien,
S. (Ed.) Handbook for Engineering Hydrology .
London: Francis & Taylor. (Submitted).Varis, O. & Kummu, M. 2011. The major Central Asian
river basins: An assessment o vulnerability.
International Journal of Water Resources
Development .
World Bank (2009) Data and statistics: country clas-
sication. Available at: [http://go.worldbank.org/
K2CKM78CC0]. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
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19
In the late 1960s, the prospect o widespread am-
ine threatened many areas o the developing world.
In response, donors provided support to develop new
crop varieties that produced much higher yields.
Fertilisers were made available to support the new
seeds, and massive investments in irrigation provided
reliable water supplies to nurture the crops and give
armers the condence to invest in change. Irriga-
tion water was so vital that the Green Revolution
which resulted has even been called a “Pump Revolu-tion,” because o the tremendous role armer supplied
groundwater had in driving change (Repetto, 1994).
With this revolution millions o armers became ood
secure, rural livelihoods were transormed and new
ood supplies drove down prices or urban consumers.
Te early successes o the Green Revolution had
many actors in their avour. Tose making the
changes beneted directly. Farmers saw the benets
o growing improved varieties with higher yields that
brought them larger incomes. Feedback was direct and
measurable, so adoption increased quickly.
P h o t o : T i m o t h y
S y r o t y a / I W M I
Innovations in Agricultural Watr Managmnt:
Nw Challngs Rquir Nw Solutions
By Mark Giordano, Tushaar Shah, Charlotte de Fraiture and Meredith Giordano
Politicians could easily understand the issues and
benets. Tus, there was strong political support or
policy changes that led to the construction o large
irrigation schemes and energy subsidies to support
water access. Te technical and engineering solutions
were at hand.
Te conditions that challenge agriculture today are
very dierent rom those o the 1960s. From a water
perspective, rivers are drying up, groundwater is being
depleted, and ‘water crisis’ is now a commonly usedterm. Agriculture now consumes 70-80 per cent o all
human water withdrawals, with severe consequences
or many ecosystems and the related services on which
we all depend. We now know that we can no longer
view water as an inexhaustible and ree input to a
global ood production system (Comprehensive As-
sessment o Water Management in Agriculture, 2007).
Higher incomes, changing diets, and urbanisa-
tion will impose new demands on agricultural water.
Biouel production will compete with ood production
or available resources. Climate change will bring
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more requent droughts and foods, and will infuence
temperature regimes in ways that will increase the
challenges aced by armers in how they manage water.
Economic growth will deepen competition between
agricultural and non‐agricultural water uses.
At the same time, we know we have not yet solved
the rural poverty challenge that drove our earlier eorts.Large numbers o the rural poor will continue migra-
ting to cities in search o employment. Increasing urban-
isation will place additional pressure on agriculture to
produce sucient ood at low cost.
We are thus presented with a dilemma. Water, as
put by Kalpanatai Salunkhe, a rural development
worker in India, “is the divide between poverty and
prosperity”. But using that water has a cost. “More
rice, at the price o a river,” as succinctly articulated
by acclaimed Indian author Arundhati Roy in Te
God o Small Tings (1997).
Sometimes there are obvious scientic and technical
solutions to the dilemma. Many times though it seems
that the problems are insurmountable. We provide in
this paper three examples o how the dilemma can
be solved, or at least reduced, by approaching water
problems rom alternative perspectives. We look rst at
working in concert with the trends individual armers
are pursuing. We then describe how less than “optimal”solutions can generate improved results. Finally, we
show why it is important to be cautious when orming
perceptions o problems and potential solutions, as some
problems require case-specic or localised approaches
that might not seem evident upon our initial review.
Small is beautiul… and what armers are
choosing
Much o the public investment in agricultural water
management has ocused on large scale irrigationsystems. Perhaps because o this, national irrigation
statistics sometimes do not even attempt to include
the areas unded by private sector investments,
particularly those o individual armers. One conse-
quence is that smallholder agricultural water manage-
ment is oten ignored and unrecognised by both inves-
tors and policy makers. But, smallholder agricultural
water management is a vibrant and growing sector,
and in many countries the area under privately managed
and owned irrigation is substantially larger than that
under public irrigation schemes.
For example, in South Asia most o the irrigated
area depends on privately owned and managed wells.
Some estimates put the number o privately owned
wells in India at around 25 million, providing 70 per
cent o all irrigation water (Shah, 2009). In Bangladesh
5.1 million o the 6.2 million irrigated hectares are
under privately owned wells and 86 per cent o thearea is served by privately owned pumps (BBS, 2010).
Te situation is similar in Southeast Asia.
In Indonesia the number o privately owned motor
pumps used in irrigation increased rom 1.17 million to
2.17 million just between 1998 and 2002 (Government o
Indonesia cited in Shah 2009). In Vietnam the number
o privately owned irrigation pumps quintupled
during the 1990s to 800,000 (Barker and Molle,
2004). In Tailand there were 3 million privately
owned irrigation pumps in the year 2000, up rom
500,000 in 1985 (Molle et al., 2003). While recent data
are scarce, it is likely that the trend observed in the
1990s has continued.
rends are similar in Arica even i the scale is not
as extensive. Small private irrigation now represents
15 per cent o irrigated area in Kenya, 55 per cent in
Niger and 75 per cent in Nigeria (Abric et al ., 2011).
In Ghana nearly hal a million smallholders irrigate
185,000 hectares using buckets, watering cans andsmall pumps, compared to 11,000 armers in the pub-
lic irrigation schemes (Namara et al , orthcoming).
Te small private irrigation sector employs 45 times
more individuals and covers 25 times more land area
than the public irrigation schemes. All this is virtually
unrecognised in public statistics despite the act that
this small private irrigation has been the only real orce
in increasing irrigation in much o sub-Saharan Arica
in recent decades (akeshima et al ., 2010).
Supporting smallholder agricultural managementcan leverage an existing, armer-driven trend largely
ignored by investors. Farmers’ genuine interest is dem-
onstrated by their willingness to initiate and nance
irrigation themselves. Without the need or large inra-
structure (dams, canals, distribution devices) upront
investment costs are low. echnologies suitable or
smallholders are available. Compared to public or
community managed schemes, the organisational
aspects are simple and prot margins are high.
However, there are constraints, mostly unrelated
to the water sector, or which public action is needed
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21
(de Fraiture, orthcoming). Tese include market in-
eciencies such as poorly developed supply chains; high
taxes and transaction costs; and access to inormation
and knowledge regarding irrigation, seeds, marketing,
and equipment. We must also address the inormation
and power asymmetries in output markets, which limit
the returns many armers receive or their produce. While we must be mindul o potential negative
consequences o uncoordinated private irrigation de-
velopment, the reach o the sector and its contribution
to both poverty reduction and ood security in Asia
and Arica could expand signicantly with appropriate
public interventions. As an example o the possibilities,
in sub-Saharan Arica there are an estimated 122 mil-
lion potential rural beneciaries o motorised pumps.
Widespread adoption o such pumps could generate
net revenues up to USD 7.5 billion per year (see Xieet al ., orthcoming).
Pricing water and energy could help… but so
too can creative, non-price solutions
In trying to solve water problems, we oten look or
“optimal” solutions emanating rom our disciplinary or
sectoral perspectives. However, holding out or the best
oten means we miss other opportunities or positive
change as the case o Gujarat, India shows (Shah andVerma 2008, Shat et al . 2008). Tere, ree groundwater
and the ree electricity to pump it contributed to severe
groundwater overdrat, near bankruptcy o the State
Electricity Board, and poor power supply to armers
and other rural residents. Te problem had been well
known or decades, and the textbook solution was
simple: price electricity and groundwater to refect
their value. However, those who tried to implement
these solutions did not appreciate the political realities
o India. Eorts to rationalise pricing were met withgreat resistance by armers. Politicians lost their jobs
P h o t o : D a
v i d B r a z i e r / I W M I
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not enough groundwater use, outcomes which ulti-
mately hamper the economic development o one o
the world’s poorest regions.
Looking orward… with a view toward
innovative policy approaches
We ace daunting agricultural water managementchallenges as demand increases and rural poverty
and general ood insecurity persist. Tere will be no
single solution, but by thinking dierently, we can
crat case-specic solutions that are appropriate or
given locations and points in time.
We have highlighted three examples o innova-
tive approaches toward solving water management
problems. While we might be perplexed at how to better
manage existing large scale irrigation schemes, we can
observe the irrigation successes o small private armers
P h o t o : D a
v i d B r a z i e r / I W M I
and work with them to increase their production and
expand their livelihood activities. While problems
such as groundwater overdrat may seem impossible to
resolve, we can look or alternative approaches outside
the water sector and crat packages o change that are
politically palatable and move us in the right direction.
When “toolbox” approaches do not seem to deliver, we can re-examine our perception o the problems and
make sure that our solutions truly t the problems o
a particular time and place.
Good science will continue to enhance our un-
derstanding and provide the technology needed to
improve the way we work. We will also need new
insights and innovative thinking to help us put science
and technology into use within the many political
economies in which we live.
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Reerences
Abric, S., Sonou, M., Augegard, B., Onimus, F., Durlin,
D., Soumaila, A., Gadelle, F. (2011) Lessons
learned in the development o smallholder private
irrigation or high-value crops in West Arica. Joint
Organizational Discussion paper issue 4. WorldBank, FAO, IFAD, Practica, ARID and IWMI. Wash-
ington DC: The World Bank.
Bangladesh Bureau o Statistics (BBS). (2010) Re-
trieved May 2010, rom: www.bbs.gov.bd.
Barker, R., Molle, F. (2004) Evolution o irrigation in
Asia. Comprehensive Assessment Research paper
no. 5. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water
Management Institute.
Comprehensive Assessment o Water Management in
Agriculture. (2007) Water or Food, Water or Lie:
A Comprehensive Assessment o Water Manage-
ment in Agriculture. London: Earthscan, and Co-
lombo: International Water Management Institute.
de Fraiture, Charlotte. Forthcoming. Overview paper.
Agricultural Water Management.
Giordano, Mark. (2009) Global groundwater? Issues
and solutions. Annual Review of Environment and
Resources 34:7.1-7.26.
Molle, F., Shah, T., Barker, R. (2003) The groundswello pumps: Multilevel impacts o a silent revolution.
Paper prepared for the ICID-Asia meeting. Taiwan.
November 2003.
Mukherji, A. (2005) Political ecology o groundwater:
The contrasting case o water-abundant West Ben-
gal and water-scarce Gujarat, India. Hydrogeology
Journal, 14(3), pp. 392–406.
Namara, R.E., Hope, L., Sarpong, E.O., de Fraiture, C.,
Owusu, D. Forthcoming. Adoption o water liting
technologies or agricultural production in Ghana:Implications or investment and public policy.
Agricultural Water Management.
Repetto R. (1994) The ‘Second India’ revisited:
Population, poverty and environmental stress over
two decades. Washington, DC: World Resources
Institute.
Revelle, R., Lakshminarayana, V. (1975) The Gangeswater machines. Science, Am. Soc . For the Ad-
vancement o Science 188, 9 May.
Roy, Arundhati. (1997) The God of Small Things.
IndiaInk, India.
Shah, Tushaar (2009a) Taming the anarchy: Ground-
water governance in South Asia. Washington D.C.:
RFF press.
Shah, T., Verma, S. (2008) Co-management o
electricity and groundwater: An assessment o
Gujarat’s Jyotirgram scheme. Economic and
Political Weekly, Vol.43(7): 59-66.
Shah, T., Bhatt, S., Shah, R.K., Talati, J. (2008)
Groundwater governance through electr icity
supply management: Assessing an innovative
intervention in Gujarat, western India. Agricultural
Water Management 95(11):1233-1242.
Takeshima, H., Adeoti, A ., Salau, S. (2010) Measur-
ing the eect o transaction costs or investment
in irrigation pumps: Application o unobservedstochastic threshold model to the case o Nigeria.
Nigerian Strategy Support Program (NSSP) Work-
ing Paper 0015.
Xie, H., You, L., Wielgosz. B., Ringer, C. Forthcoming.
What is the potential or smallholder agricultural
water management in Sub-Saharan Arica? Agricul-
tural Water Management.
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P h o t o : A .
F l e u r e t , U S A I D
Womn in Agricultur: Closing th Gndr Ga
or Dvlomnt1 By Sibyl Nelson, Ilaria Sisto, Eve Crowley and Marcela Villarreal
“Gender” reers not to male and emale, but to masculineand eminine – that is, to qualities or characteristics
that society ascribes to each sex. People are born emale
or male, but learn to be women and men. Perceptions
o gender are deeply rooted, vary widely both within
and between cultures, and change over time. But in
all cultures, gender determines power and resources
or emales and males.
In traditional rural societies, commercial agri-
cultural production is mainly a male responsibility.
Men prepare land, irrigate crops, and harvest andtransport produce to market. Tey own and trade large
animals such as cattle, and are responsible or cutting,
hauling and selling timber rom orests. In shing
communities, capturing sh in coastal and deep-sea
waters is almost always a male domain.
In many societies, rural women have primary re-
sponsibility or maintaining the household. Tey raise
children, grow and prepare ood, manage amily poul-
try, and collect uel wood and water. In addition tothese unremunerated tasks, women and girls also play
an important, largely unpaid, role in generating amily
income, by providing labour or planting, weeding,
harvesting and threshing crops, and processing
produce or sale. Women may also earn some income
or themselves by selling vegetables rom home gardens,
poultry or milk products, grains or orest products.
Tey spend that income mainly on meeting amily
ood needs and educating children.
Although women make substantial contributionsto household well-being and agricultural production,
in many households men control the sale o crops and
animals and the use o the income. Te ailure to
value their work reduces women’s status in economic
transactions, the allocation o household resources,
and wider community decision-making (FAO, 2012).
A recent study on the progress against key Millennium
Development Goal (MDG) indicators shows that,
1 This chapter is largely based on FAO’s The State of Food and Agriculture - Women in Agriculture: Closing the gender gapfor development (2011).
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globally and with ew exceptions, rural women are
worse than rural men and urban women and men or
every indicator or which data are available, with very
ew exceptions (Inter-Agency ask Force on Rural
Women, 2012). Tis is why, addressing the dier-
ences between men and women and in particular the
inequalities women tend to ace in relation to men is a critical component o rural agricultural development.
The gender gap in agriculture
Te agriculture sector is underperorming in many
developing countries, in part because women do not
have equal access to the resources and opportunities
they need to be more productive. While tremendous
progress has been made in supporting women’s legal
rights, educational achievements and participation
in public lie and the economy, no country can claimto be entirely ree rom gender-based discrimination.
Te “gender gap”, which is the dierence between
men and women in access to productive resources,
imposes real costs on society in terms o lost agricul-
tural output, ood security and economic growth.
Promoting gender equality is not only good or
women; it is also good or agricultural development
and or poverty and hunger reduction.
Women make essential contributions to the rural
economy o all developing country regions as armers,
labourers and entrepreneurs. Women comprise, onaverage, 43 per cent o the agricultural labour orce
in developing countries. Tis average share ranges
rom 20 per cent in Latin America to 50 per cent in
Eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Arica. Teir contri-
bution to agricultural work varies even more widely
depending on the specic crop and activity. In many
countries women are involved in rained agriculture,
backyard or irrigated home gardening, while men are
oten responsible or rained commodities and land
management aspects o irrigation. Women play a key role in sheries and aquaculture (see box 1).
Women’s roles are diverse and changing rapidly, so
generalisations should be made careully. Yet one act
is strikingly consistent across countries and contexts:
P h o t o : D e
r e k S c i b a ,
U S A I D
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Box 1:
Women in fsheries and aquaculture
Inormation provided to FAO rom 86 countries
indicates that in 2008, 5.4 million women
worked as shers and sh armers in the primarysector. This represents 12 per cent o the total.
In two major producing countries, China and
India, women represented a share o 21 per cent
and 24 per cent, respectively, o all shers and
sh armers.
Studies o women in aquaculture indicate that the
contribution o women in labour is oten greater
than men’s. Women are reported to constitute
42 per cent o the rural aquaculture workorce in
Indonesia and 80 per cent in Viet Nam.
The most signicant role played by women in both
artisanal and industrial sheries is at the process-
ing and marketing stages. Most sh processing
is perormed by women, either in their own
household-level industries or as wage labourers.
women have less access than men to agricultural as-
sets, inputs and services and to rural employment
opportunities, including land, water, ertiliser, live-
stock, mechanical equipment, improved seed varieties,
credit, extension services and agricultural education,
among others. Women and their concerns remain
still mostly invisible in decision-making in govern-
ance structures, planning, policy-making, inra-structure and technology development, as well as in
rural institutions. Women are oten excluded rom
decision-making processes in new agricultural wa-
ter management approaches and resource allocation,
with no choice in the kind or location o services
they receive. It is important to develop policies
and programs that address the needs, interests and
constraints o women and men in the agriculture sec-
tor. Tis includes to strengthen extension systems to be
more responsive to women, address structural barriers
to their access to productive resources and improve the
nancial systems to support rural women producers
and entrepreneurs to move out o less productive
segments o the rural economy. Compared with their
male counterparts, women:
• aremuchlesslikelytoownlandthenmenand,
when they do, operate smaller arms, on average
only hal to two-thirds as large;• keepfewerlivestock,typicallyofsmallerbreeds,
and earn less rom the livestock they do own;
• haveagreateroverallworkloadthatincludesa
heavy burden o reproductive and care activities like
etching water, rewood, child care and domestic
ood preparation with low or no economic returns;
• havelesseducationandlessaccesstoagricultural
inormation and extension services;
• uselesscreditandothernancialservices;
• aremuchlesslikelytopurchaseinputssuchasfer-tilisers, improved seeds and mechanical equipment;
• ifemployed,aremorelikelytobeinpart-time,
seasonal and low-paying jobs; and
• receivelowerwagesforthesamework,evenwhen
they have the same or better experience and quali-
cations.
Te impacts o this gap are signicant. Female arm-
ers produce less than male armers, but not becausethey are less-ecient armers – extensive empirical
evidence shows that the productivity gap between
male and emale armers is caused by dierences in
input use. I women had the same access to productive
resources as men, they could increase yields on their
arms by 20–30 per cent. It is important to highlight
that, in some specic contexts, rural men can also
be disadvantaged with no role in decision making or
limited access to resources and services (i.e. domestic
water, local markets or credit) or exposed to moredangerous jobs than women. raditional stereotypes
may not allow men to dedicate enough time to re-
productive activities, like child care, with consequent
impacts on their lie quality.
Closing the gender gap in agriculture would
generate signicant gains or the agriculture sector
and or society. By bringing the yields on the land
armed by women up to the levels achieved by men
would increase the total agricultural output in de-
veloping countries by 2.5–4 per cent. Increasing the
production by this amount could reduce the number
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o hungry people in the world by 12–17 per cent.
According to FAO’s recent estimates, 925 million
people are currently undernourished. Closing the
gender gap in agricultural yields could bring that
number down by as much as 100-150 million people.
Te potential gains would vary by region depending on
how many women are currently engaged in agriculture,how much production or land they control, and how
wide a gender inequality they ace.
Rural women and agriculture water management
Tere are numerous gender issues in agriculture water
management, many o which relate to the existing
inequality between women and men in agriculture.
Women’s lack o ownership and weaker tenure o land,
in comparison to men, impacts their ability to make
decisions about water use on the land. Lack o owner-ship o land can also bar women rom participating
in water user associations, which can result in poor
technical outcomes in water management (World
Bank et al , 2009).
Women’s role in managing domestic water, and
the impact this has on their livelihoods, has been
documented in numerous countries. Studies rom
Kenya, Uganda and the United Republic o anzania,
or example, show that children and women in ruralareas etch water rom the main water source on aver-
age our times per day and require about 25 minutes
or each trip. “In rural areas o Guinea, or example,
women spend more than twice as much time etching
wood and water per week than men, while in Malawi
they spend over eight times more than men on the
same tasks. Girls in rural Malawi also spend over
three times more time than boys etching wood and
water. Collectively, women rom Sub-Saharan Arica
spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water”(Inter-Agency ask Force on Rural Women, 2012).
Many o these tasks could be made much less on-
erous and time consuming through the adoption o
simple technologies. In addition, the introduction
o water sources in villages can signicantly reduce
the time spent by women and girls etching water.
For example, the construction and rehabilitation P h o t o : N e i l P a l m e r , C I A T
2 Inserting the potential output gains calculated above into the ormula or estimating the number o undernourished provides a roughquantitative estimate o how closing the gender gap in agriculture could cont ribute to reducing hunger. I yield gaps o 20–30 per cent wereclosed and domestic production increased by 2.5– 4 per cent, the number o undernourished people in the countries or which data areavailable could decline by 12–17 per cent.
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o water sources in six rural provinces o Morocco
reduced the time that women and young girls spent
etching water by 50–90 per cent. Primary school
attendance or girls in these provinces rose by 20 per
cent over a period o our years, which was partly at-
tributed to the act that girls spent less time etching
water. When women’s and girls’ time is reed romthese burdensome tasks, they can engage in other
activities to strengthen livelihood resilience, includ-
ing productive activities such as crop production.
On one side this osters social and group cohesion and
provides women with an opportunity to communicate
with other women and people outside their homes.
On the other hand, it exposes them to threats o vio-
lence and health hazards.
New agricultural projects are becoming more multi-
purpose, multi-use and multi-user, with more involve-
ment o communities, both men and women, in the se-
lection o and planning or such interventions. Neither
recognising nor addressing the multiple uses o water
is one o the causes o women’s lower participation in
water users’ associations. In many societies, ensuring
that there is water or household use is a task assigned
to women. However, in some places both men and
women are getting involved in water issues at various
levels and capacities to solve water problems, taking
into account their knowledge and skills regarding the local water situation, and their dierent use and
control o water (World Bank et al., 2009).
Te Dublin Principles (adopted at the Interna-
tional Conerence on Water and the Environment,
1992) recognise the central role o women in water
management and policymakers have subsequently
made attempts to incorporate gender issues in water
development projects. “However, these policies have
not been adequately translated into practice and at-
tempts to involve women in water management havemet with only modest success. Inequality remains a se-
rious problem among various groups (socio-economic,
religious, ethnic and caste) and between men and
P h o t o : M a t s L a n n e r s t a d
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30
women within these groups. Tis is mainly due to a
series o actors, including the lack o understanding
o gender issues by policymakers and project sta,
the lack o will and commitment during the project
design and implementation, the limited capacity and
use o relevant tools, and the limited sex-disaggregated
data, in addition to the local cultural norms” (WorldBank, et al ., 2009).
Policy interventions can help close the gender gap
in agriculture and rural labour markets. Priority areas
or reorm include:
• Eliminatingdiscriminationagainstwomeninac-
cess to agricultural resources, education, extension
and nancial services, and labour markets;
• Investinginlaboursavingandproductivityenhanc-
ing technologies and inrastructure to ree women’s
time or more productive activities; and• Facilitatingtheparticipationofwomeninexible,
ecient and air rural labour markets.
Water sector reorms in several countries have creat-
ed many new institutions, some o which may include a
gender unit, even though these oten have not aected
the way the institutions work. Some positive examples
o armative action policies have incorporated into
regulations o water ministries (i.e. Lesotho, Uganda
and South Arica) targets or involving women at all
levels o water management, speciying per centages
o sta who should be women. Te Arican Ministers’Council on Water ( AMCOW ) has also launched a
Policy and strategy or mainstreaming gender in the
water sector in Arica to ensure that gender concerns
are taken into account in the ormulation and imple-
mentation o policies and laws to create equity and
equality.
Building on these positive developments, additional
eorts are needed to close the gap between women and
men in the agriculture sector. Making women’s voices
heard at all levels in decision-making and ensuring
that they have the same access to resources and op-
portunities as men is crucial to making them better
armers, more productive workers, better mothers and
stronger citizens.
Reerences
AMCOW (2011). AMCOW Policy and Strategy or
Mainstreaming Gender in the Water Sector in
Arica.
FAO (2011). The state o ood and agriculture –
Women in agriculture: Closing the gender gap or
development. FAO.
FAO (2012). Gender website. www.fao.org/gender/
gender-home/gender-why/why-gender/en.
Inter-agency Task Force on Rural Women (2012)Rural Women and the Millennium Development
Goals. FAO.
The World Bank, FAO, IFAD (2009) The gender
and agriculture sourcebook. Module 6 – Gender
mainstreaming in agricultural water management.
World Bank.
Gender and Water Alliance (2006). Gender,
domestic water supply and hygiene. Gender and
Water Alliance.
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31
P h o t o : S u s a n n a
W e s t m a n T o d o r o v i c ,
S I W I
Food Suly Chain efcincy “From Fild to Fork”:
Finding a Nw Formula or a Watr and Food Scur World
By Josephine Gustafsson and Jan Lundqvist
Demand or ood will increase dramatically this cen-
tury. With increasing competition or limited water,
land and other natural resources, a undamental task
ahead is to make the best possible use o these resourc-
es and to acilitate that the goods and services pro-
duced, including ood, will be accessible across social
groups and properly used by a burgeoning population.
Tis raises questions as to whether continuing con-
ventional propositions that ocus almost exclusively
on increasing production to meet demand is the only,and the smartest, way orward in eeding a growing
world population.
Tere is reason to question the prevailing and con-
ventional approach to achieve ood security. Between
one-third and one-hal o the produced ood is being
lost early on in the supply chain segments or wasted at
the consumer-end, amounting to about 1.3 billion tonnes
per year globally (Gustasson et al . 2011; Lundqvist,
2010; WR AP, 2011; Partt and Barthel, 2010).
Signicant variation characterise the situation and
reliable statistical inormation is limited (Partt and
Barthel, 2011). For the US, it is argued that the level
o absolute losses and waste increases in pace with in-
creased ood supply (Hall et al . 2009) which in essence
means that the more we produce, the more we waste.
‘Good old thinking’ is not good enough
Te analytical disconnect between production and
benecial use o the produce is striking although it
is not a new phenomenon. As aptly ormulated in an
FAO report (1981:2): “It is distressing to note that somuch time is being devoted to the culture o the plant,
so much money spent on irrigation, ertilisation and
crop protection measures, only to be wasted about a
week ater harvest”. In the 30 years that have passed
since this conclusion was drawn, the resource situation
has become more precarious. Te uture is loaded
with uncertainties but competition or resources will
undoubtedly increase. Te act remains that a ll ood
produced, regardless i it is eaten, lost or wasted,
has consumed water, energy, occupied land and con-
tributed to GHG emissions.
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Table 1: Generic FSC and examples o ood waste (Partt and Barthel, 2010).
Stage Example o ood waste/loss characteristic
Harvesting
• Ediblecropsleftineld,ploughedintosoil,eatenby
birds, rodents, timing o harvest not optimal, loss in
ood quality
• Cropdamagedduringharvesting/poorharvesting
technique• Out-gradesatfarmtoimprovequalityofproduce
Threshing • Lossthroughpoortechnique
Drying – transport and distribution• Poortransportinfrastructure,lossduetospoiling,
bruising
Storage• Pests,disease,spillage,contamination,naturaldrying
out o ood
Primary processing – cleaning,classifcation, de-hulling,
pounding, grinding, packaging,
soaking, winnowing, drying,
sieving, milling
• Processlosses
• Contaminationinprocesscausinglossinquality
Secondary processing – mixing,
cooking, rying, moulding, cutting,
extrusion
• Processlosses
Product evaluation – quality
control, standard recipes• Productdiscarded/out-gradesinsupplychain
Packaging – weighing, labelling,
sealing
• Inappropriatepackagingdamagesproduce,grain
spillage rom sacks, attack by rodents
Marketing – publicity, selling,
distribution
• Damageduringtransport:spoilage
• Poorhandlinginwetmarket
• Lossescausedbylackofcooling/coldstorage
Post-consumer – recipeselaboration, traditional dishes,
new dishes, proper evaluation,
consumer education, discards
• Platescrapings
• Poorstorage/stockmanagementathome:food
discarded beore serving• Poorfoodpreparationtechnique:ediblefood
discarded together with inedible
• Fooddiscardedinpackaging:Confusionof‘best
beore’ or ‘use by’ dates
End o lie – disposal o ood
waste/loss at dierent stages o
supply chain
• Foodwastediscardedmaybeseparatelytreated,feed
to livestock/poultry, mixed with other wastes and
landflled
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Te high rates o losses and waste o ood make our
resource eciency very low, and this ineciency comes
at substantial economic and environmental costs (Lun-
dqvist, et al . 2008; Björklund, et al ., 2008). It is important
to note that estimates on the level o losses depend on what is included in the denition. Higher gures include
the conversion o grain to eed and to biouels into the
calculations. Some even take overeating into account as a
orm o “waste”, as this arguably is a non-benecial use o
ood, which is also on the increase. Te level o losses also
varies signicantly between seasons, years and between
commodities and regions. A ‘logical paradox’ is that losses
tend to be larger during “good years” i.e. when yields are
high, due to insucient transport, storage and marketaccess (Enors, 2009; Adesina, 2009; Lundqvist, 2010).
Apart rom the need to pay attention to quantitative
aspects in the supply chain, more attention should
in parallel be paid to consumer diets and habits.
Dietary trends on the whole are moving towards an
increased overall demand or, and a larger share o,
more water intensive ood items. Tis will have wide
implications or resource use, though it is dicult to
predict precisely how these patterns will aect resource
consumption in the uture ( WWAP, 2012). Tus,balancing health-related preerences such as high meat
intake diets (which require more water) with sound
natural resource use principles will be increasingly
important in eorts to meet uture ood demand in
a sustainable manner.
Te challenges are daunting. Prevailing natural re-
source use already exceeds the Earth system’s carrying
capacity, as noted in the Millennium Ecosystem As-
sessment report (2005) and planetary boundaries are
not respected (Rockström et al., 2009). New modes o
thinking and governance are required in an era when
needs and wants o a growing population expand and
where segments o the population are rapidly becom-
ing wealthier. Reduction o poverty is essential, how-
ever, increasing wealth and prudence in resource use
unortunately does not seem to be a common com-bination. Primary challenges are more deeply rooted
in socio-economic and political dynamics than poli-
cies and management o natural resources. O course,
eciency in resource use is essential, but expectations and
pledges or a better lie constitute quite strong social and
political orces that may, or may not, abide to the laws
and limitation o natural resource systems.
Modiying human behaviour is an essentialchallenge
Designing a practical ormula to modiy human
behaviour is one o the most delicate and multiaceted
tasks or the 21st century. Tis challenge requires a
combination o tailored measures or dierent actors,
including producers, market operators and consum-
ers. o be eective, many o the measures need to
be designed with reerence to the local social and
environmental context. Te notion o ‘more crop per
drop’, which is widely accepted, needs to be combined with a strategy that promotes an intended and ben-
ecial use o the goods and services produced. Waste
does not have a place in such a vision. In an urbanis-
ing world with new relations between producers and
consumers, a better understanding o consumer preer-
ences and behaviour becomes essential, as elaborated
in able 1 below (Partt, et al. 2010). Sound incentive-
structures lie at the core o any institutional approach
aiming to infuence consumer behaviour, be it through
inormation campaigns, taxation o water-intensive
ood items or waste ees.
P h o t o : F e l i x A n t o n i o / I W
M I
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34
Figure 1. Average per capita ood supply in kcal per day, or selected countries and years (Lundqvist 2010, based
on Food Balance Sheet statistics, FAO).
China serves as an illustrative example o the challenge
o eeding a huge and still growing population under
environmental constraints. Rapid economic progress
and urbanisation in the nation has increased ood sup-ply and demand. By any comparison, increases in ood
supply have been remarkable, as illustrated in Figure 1.
As a result o economic progress, ood security
and quality o lie have improved or hundreds o
millions. Economic growth has, however, intensied
pressure on scarce water and land resources (as shown
in Figure 2) and brought serious environmental threats
along with it. River basins in north- and northwest-
ern China will constitute hotspots o extreme water
scarcity within the coming years (Rosegrant et. al.,
2002). With much o its production located in the dry
North, China is an interesting case to discuss in terms
o the need or improved virtual water management
even within its own borders. I trends continue, the
prospects or sound rural development, ood security
and the environment will be negatively impacted by
water shortages and environmental degradation. Po-
litical leadership in China has recognised that sus-
Snashot cas: Watr saving socity in China
tainable stewardship o natural resources is needed
to ensure continuous socio-economic progress. Te
promotion o a “water saving society” is one o the
pillars in ocial policy (FYP, Ministry o Water Re-sources, 2010). China’s combination o a precarious
water situation, rapid socio-economic development,
postharvest losses and determination to promote stable
progress or society and the environment, make it an
interesting case to examine what can be achieved by
improving supply chain eciency in a nation that
must provide ood to a vast population with limited
natural resources. Unortunately, ew studies have
looked into the level o ood losses and waste in China
today, but gures indicate that between 20-30 per cent
o the ood produced is lost or wasted (these gures
are however uncertain and dier between ood items).
Smil has argued that by lowering China’s post-harvest
losses to around 10 per cent the country could gain
30 Mt o grain a year, which is enough to provide 75
million people with adequate diet (Smil, 2000). Tis is
just one example that highlights the potential gain o
reducing ood losses and waste in the Chinese context.
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Figure 2. Food supply in China and the associated per capita water requirement 1961-2005 (Lundqvist 2010,
updated rom Liu, J. et al., 2008)
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Opportunitiestoimprovesupplychainefciency
For armers and consumers alike, there are no real ben-
ets associated with ood losses and waste. Althoughthere are costs associated with the reduction o losses
(e.g. investments in improved storage and transport),
it is a potential win-win option. Reducing losses and
waste o ood not only saves water (as well as energy
and other resources), it also enables armers to receive
income rom a larger raction o their production
(Lundqvist et al., 2008). Solutions to reduce losses and
waste are relevant rom a corporate perspective, rom
a natural resources use perspective and or society
at large. Yet, there is little debate on how dierentactors could contribute to achieve a more ecient and
sustainable ood supply chain and the benets that
would be gained by their action. Currently, there is
not sucient analysis on potential water savings gained
through improvements in the supply chain. Expanded
research in this area would be valuable to guide cost-
eective interventions to save water.
It is interesting to note that today businesses are
taking a more active role in developing strategies to
improve uture supply- and value chain eciency. Tis
is highly relevant particularly or actors with activities
located in water scarce regions and in areas where water
predicaments constitute a potential business risk. Some
actors see or instance improved packaging that candecrease the risk o ood waste as an integral part o their
corporate social responsibility (Segré and Gaiani, 2012).
Food supply chain collaboration
– A way orward?
Te underlying actors that cause ood losses and
waste are signicantly dierent when comparing indu-
strialised countries (where ood waste and overeating is
the bigger problem) and developing countries (where
ood losses and undernourishment are more extensive).Tere is consensus among scholars and decision-
makers that these require dierent approaches. In
developing countries and tropical regions, investments
in improved storage, transport and cooling inrastruc-
ture are important as is increasing producers’ access to
ood processing, packaging and markets, i.e. beyond
the local ones. Agricultural commodity producers
should be supported to diversiy and scale up their
production. Both public and private actors have a
role to play to ensure that this is achieved. Food waste
also needs to be reduced through a combination o
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37
policy interventions. In industrialised countries and
economies in transition, awareness-raising activities
should target consumers, retailers and the ood indus-try (Gustavsson, et al., 2011).
What is required is essentially a comprehensive as-
sessment o the cultural perceptions o ood and habits
and their impact on natural resources. In rich and a-
fuent societies, people are living in a “culture o abun-
dance” (Stuart, 2009) and in “comort zones” (Elias-
son, 2010). With an abundance o ood, consumers
are accustomed to choose rom shelves burgeon-
ing with subsidised ood items, accessible around
the clock. Tis makes it easier and less costly to waste and overeat, and provides less incentive to
cut down on waste and to enjoy a sustainable diet.
Few realise that the price on the tag o the items in the
shop is only part o the real price. Another part is paid
by taxes (to cover subsidies), and the environmental
costs are let invisible to the consumer.
Moving beyond what is already known, there is a
need to strengthen empirical knowledge on the mag-
nitude and the trends o losses and waste o ood. Un-
ortunately, ocial statistics leave much to be desired
(Smil, 2000; Partt and Barthel, 2011). Many actors
need to contribute to remedy the situation. Businesses,
or instance, could provide data and inormation or
part o the supply chain. Tey are in a strategic positionbetween the producers and the consumers that de-
mand a variety o ood items. o the extent possible,
inormation and gures on ood losses, waste and
potential savings respectively need to be analysed
to also understand the impact o waste in water and
socio-economic terms. Similarly, attempts need to be
made to identiy holistic ood supply chain arrange-
ments that contribute to water and energy savings.
A dialogue with actors in the supply chain on strate-
gies and arrangements that will improve supply chaineciency thereore needs to be initiated.
Finally, by adopting sustainable diets we can ad-
dress the paradox o the opposite trends with un-
dernourishment and malnutrition, including obesity
(SIWI, IFPRI, IUCN, IWMI, 2005). With a more
ecient ood supply chain and airer distribution o
the ood produced, a water and ood secure world is
still possible. o achieve this, it is essential to enable
a vivid dialogue and promote collaboration between
supply chain actors now that “the business o business”
no longer is merely “business” (Friedman, 1970).
P h o t o : D i g i t a l V i s i o n
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P h o t o : A n n e W a n g a l a c h i / C I M M Y T
early Warning Systms or Watr in Agricultur
By Mats Eriksson
Te mounting demand on agricultural systems re-
quires improved knowledge on how to respond tochanges in water availability or ood production,
particularly in semi-arid, sub-humid and monsoonal
systems. More land is being taken into production
and increasingly in marginal climate zones (Jägerskog
et al ., 2012), which are oten vulnerable to climate
variability and change, particularly delayed, reduced
or absent rainall. In addition, some areas in vulner-
able climate zones that are used or arming today
may suer rom a warmer and drier climate, and not
be suitable or agriculture at all times. As a result, theamount o productive armland per capita is decreasing
rapidly (Funk, 2011).
Te shrinking availability o land, growing de-
mand or ood, and increasingly variable and uncertain
climate together limit the buer margin or ailure in
ood production (Gerten & Rost, 2009). Tis makes
eective Early Warning Systems (EWS) crucial to
prevent catastrophic disruptions o agricultural pro-
duction rom occurring when unavorable changes in
rainall arise, or when irrigation water supplies are una-
vailable or insucient. In this chapter, we discuss how
EWS can bolster ood security by reducing damages
caused to agriculture by water scarcity and drought. A drought EWS is designed to detect the emergence,
or probability o occurrence, and the likely severity
o drought ( WMO, 2006) and then provide warn-
ings on potential threats posed by such weather and
climate orecasts. Any EWS, and particularly those or
drought, is dependent on long term reliable monitor-
ing o meteorological and hydrological parameters.
Te ability to use the obtained data or orecasts is
undamental or the EWS to be eective. By providing
warnings at an early stage, EWS can enable armers toadapt and plan to the projected situation in advance
and prevent sudden crisis o ood insecurity. EWS
designed with the purpose to alert arming communi-
ties on climate related shortages in water availability,
linked to shorter or longer periods o dry spells or
drought, are especially important or this purpose and
particularly or non-irrigated agriculture. But they are
challenging to establish and make unctional. Tese
weather phenomena progress slowly, and it is dicult
to know i, and when, a warning or water shortages
should be announced.
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P h o t o : R .
R o s s i M a r s h l a n d ,
U S A I D
From warning to response: Establishing an
eective end-to-end EWS
Te recent drought and consequent amine in the
Horn o Arica is a tragic example that powerully
demonstrates why EWS are needed, as well as the chal-
lenges aced to make them unctional and eective.
In act, several institutes issued warnings on the pre-
dicted shortcoming o rains at an early stage. For
instance, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network
(FEWS NE), set up by the US Agency or Interna-tional Development to help policy makers prevent
humanitarian disasters, issued alerts several months
ahead o the actual drought based on analysis o global
scale climate systems (El Niño/La Niña and Indian
Ocean temperatures) and the ood security situation
at the time (Funk, 2011). Te warnings did not trigger
much action. Even when the absence o rains proved
the warnings to be correct, governments and the in-
ternational community still did not react. It was not
until the crisis hit the media and news channels ran
stories showing desperately malnourished children that
they took action. One reason or the slow response was
political ear o nancial and reputational risks i the
warnings proved to be wrong (Hillier & Dempsey,
2012). Another reason may have been that international
actors were apprehensive about being perceived as
overly interventionist and, in the process, undermining
the capacity o local communities to cope with the
drought. In addition, in some regions such as the Horn
o Arica, there is a “drought atigue”, which slows the
response time.Te 2011 crisis in the Horn o Arica highlights the
act that any EWS has to be an “end-to-end system”.
Tis means that it should encompass a chain o activi-
ties involving data gathering, compilation, analysis,
orecast, decisions, communication, and nally enable
a response. Although both are essential, perhaps the
largest challenge to creating a unctional EWS pertains
more to creating communication channels rather than
technical matters. Both the climate service providers
and the climate service users need to reach out and
learn rom each other how to transmit and use knowl-
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41
edge more eectively in order to prevent crisis and save
lives (UN/ISDR , 2006). Tus, the early warnings, or
other related inormation such as orecasts, need to
be tailor-made to the recipient and as such will look
dierent i it is targeting the science community, poli-
ticians and decision makers, or armers. In addition,
good governance o the system and political will totake action under uncertainty are crucial actors to
avoid climate related disasters and ood insecurity.
CurrentstatusofclimateservicesandEWS
Te collection, storage and dissemination o mete-
orological and hydrological data are a major task that
involves many institutions and centres operating on
global, regional and national levels, oten under the
supervision o the World Meteorological Organiza-
tion ( WMO). Climate inormation on the global andregional level is based on large scale atmospheric mod-
els and remote sensing technology. National level insti-
tutions strongly rely on ground-based meteorological
observation networks. Tese have been deteriorating in
the last decades, particularly in the tropics, in remote
areas, and in least developed countries. Unortunately,
these are places where this kind o inormation is
probably needed the most. Finding stable nancing
to build and maintain these networks is oten a greatchallenge as governments must be convinced o the
importance o this data, its potential service and the
value o preemptive action. Nonetheless, themes like
ood security, water availability and health are the
primary targets o policies and are greatly dependent
upon eective and ecient climate services in order
to deliver results. Demonstrating the benets o using
climate services in these prime target policy areas is es-
sential to enhancing the nancial security o National
Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) as well as o global atmospheric and spatial programmes.
Global meteorological climate inormation sys-
tems have also developed considerably during the
last decades. Te Global Climate Observation System
(GCOS), a joint undertaking o WMO, the Inter-
governmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) o
UNESCO, UNEP and the International Council or
Science (ICSU), is now able to provide comprehensive
inormation on the total climate system. It includes
both on the ground and remote sensing components
and is intended to meet the ull range o national and
international requirements or climate and climate-
related observations. It constitutes the climate observ-
ing section o the Global Earth Observation System
o Systems (GEOSS).
Few systems exist worldwide to provide early warn-
ings o droughts (Grasso and Singh, 2011). FAO’s Glob-
al Inormation and Early Warning System on Foodand Agriculture (GIEWS) (FAO, 2009), the Humani-
tarian Early Warning Service (HEWS) (established
with the help o the World Food Programme) and the
Beneld Hazard Research Center o the University
College London are the main global programmes
that provide early warnings on natural hazards,
including drought. Te GIEWS provides inormation
on countries acing ood insecurity through monthly
brieng reports, which includes drought inormation.
Te HEWS collects drought status inormation romseveral sources, and the Beneld Hazard Research
Center produces monthly maps o drought conditions.
However, the ways and means to use these inormation
sources on the national level determines whether early
warnings become successul or not.
On a regional scale, the US based Famine Early
Warning System (FEWS NE) provides monthly re-
ports on droughts and amine conditions or Eastern
Arica, Central America and Aghanistan. Similarservices are available or North America (the North
American Drought Monitor, including US, Canada
and Mexico) and China (Beijing Climate Center o
the China Meteorological Administration).
WMO, in collaboration with the UNCCD, is
implementing two initiatives addressing drought. A
High Level Meeting on National Drought Policy
(HMNDP), planned or March 2013, will address
the need to develop national drought policies. Te
Integrated Drought Management Program (IDMP) will contribute to the global coordination o drought-
related eorts o existing organisations and agencies.
On the national level, National Meteorological and
Hydrological Services (NMHS) provide platorms or
weather and climate inormation. Te capacities o each
NMHS is pivotal or the ability o a country to assess
inormation, and to issue warning and alerts when
needed. It provides one o the most crucial links in
the end-to-end chain between climate inormation
producers and users (Srinivasan et al., 2010). Te
NMHS also has to tailor the inormation to t the
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P h o t o : I L R I / D o r i n e A d h o c h
Priorities or the uture
Recent advances in inormation and communication
technologies, improved space-based technologies or
monitoring weather and climate, and stronger skills
in providing weather orecasts and climate scenarios
have greatly enhanced the possibilities to establish
well unctional EWS or water in agriculture. Tere
are still, however, major challenges to overcome in
most regions o the world.
Monitoring o rainall, soil moisture and other
hydro-meteorological parameters provides the basis
or the development o water availability scenarios
and orecasting o droughts. A combination o eldbased and remote sensing techniques can be used to
provide the inormation that orms the cornerstone
or the assessment o potential upcoming droughts
upon which any warnings to the arming and other
communities will be based. Changes in climate and its
variability are long term processes which also demand
long data series. Tereore, it is crucial to continue
measuring meteorological parameters and ensure that
there are no interruptions in data series. A gap in
data cannot be repaired in atermath, and the cost tomaintain data series is small compared to the value
o this inormation when society needs to prepare or
climate-induced hazards.
In addition, existing approaches to provide early
warning on drought must be improved. Due to their
complex nature, several indicators are required or
drought monitoring and early warnings. Although all
types o drought are originally due to a shortage o
rain, monitoring only this parameter is insucient toassess the severity and impacts o a drought ( WMO,
2006). Precipitation must be integrated with other
climatic parameters.
For large parts o the world suering rom droughts,
EWS are oten inadequate, non-unctional or non-
existent. Te most critical component or a EWS is
its ability to ensure eective communication o inor-
mation throughout the end-to-end chain. Here, the
importance or decision makers on dierent levels
to take action on early warnings is crucial. Decisionmakers on higher levels must understand the costs and
potential consequences to not responding early and
committing resources on the basis o orecasts, and
they must be inormed on the risks posed by waiting
or certainty (Hillier and Dempsey, 2012). Early ac-
tion generally involves taking a modest nancial cost,
while acting late risks the loss o lives and livelihoods
and ultimately spending more money on response.
Waiting until the emergency is ully established means
that the risks and consequences o inaction are borne
by vulnerable people themselves.
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44
Reerences
FAO (2003). Trade reorms and ood security:
Conceptualizing the linkages. FAO, Rome.
Retrieved July 2, 2012, rom www.ao.org/
docrep/005/y4671e/y4671e00.htm.
FAO (2009). GIEWS – The global inormation andearly warning system on ood and agriculture.
FAO, Rome.
Funk, C. (2011). We thought trouble was coming.
Nature, Vol. 476, p.7.
Gerten, D., Rost, S. (2009) Hydrologic limitation o
global ood production and the potential o green
water management. Climate Change: Global Risks,
Challenges and Decisions. IOP Conf. Series: Earth
and Environmental Science 6.
Grasso, V.F., Singh, A. (2011) Early warning systems:
State-o-art analysis and uture directions.
Draft report, UNEP. Retrieved July 2, 2012 rom
http://na.unep.net/geas/docs/Early_Warning_
System_Report.pd
Hillier, D., Dempsey, B. (2012) A dangerous delay –
The cost o late response to early warnings in the
2011 drought in the Horn o Arica. Oxfam Interna-
tional and Save the Children, UK.
Jägerskog, A., Cascão, A., Hårsmar, M., Kim, K. (2012).
Land acquisitions: How will they Impact Trans-
boundary Waters. Report Nr 30. SIWI, Stockholm.
Srinivasan, G., Rasura, K., Subbiah, AR. (2010). Cli-
mate inormation or adaptation and risk manage-ment within local communities. Abstract for the
Technical Conference on Changing Climate and
Demands for Climate Services for Sustainable
Development, Turkey Feb 2010.
UN/ISDR (2006). Global survey o early warning
systems. Report released at the Third Interna-
tional Conerence on Early Warning, Bonn, March
2006. Retreived July 2, 2012, from www.unisdr.
org/2006/ppew/info-resources/ewc3/Global-
Survey-of-Early-Warning-Systems.pdf.
WMO (2006) Drought monitoring and early warning:
concepts, progress and uture challenges.
WMO – No. 1006.
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45
P h o t o : J o h n M a
c R o b e r t / C I M M Y T
Land Dals: A ‘Grn Rvolution’ in Global Food
and enrgy Markts?1
By Anders Jägerskog and Ana Cascão
Te Global Sustainability Panel (GSP, 2012) states
that “While investment in the agricultural sectors
o low-income countries is urgently needed, the new
trend o land access deals oten compounds local,
well-established and persistent constraints aced by
the poor in obtaining access to land and water.”
Te GSP report is one o the rst to explicitly point
out the link between investment in land and access to
water on a global scale. Beyond the issues o access to
water and land, politics and global market dynamicsurther drive the intensity o this nexus and oten over-
ride local priorities and rights (Jägerskog et al ., 2012).
Land deals in Arica, Latin America and Southeast
Asia or the production o ood, cash-crops and biou-
els has increased in recent years, and quickly escalated
ater the rise o ood prices in 2007-2008. Tat crisis,
coupled by water scarcity in countries in the Middle
East and North Arica region as well as in parts o Asia,
caused countries relying on ood imports (and the ‘vir-
tual water’ embedded within them) to diversiy risks
to mitigate the impacts that uture ood price hikes
may have on their populations. Te strategy pursued
by these ood-scarce countries has been to invest in
land or the production o ood crops in countries well-
endowed with land and water resources (Von Braun,
J. and Meinzen-Dick R, 2009). Can this mean that
the world might be experiencing a new ‘green revolu-
tion’ (dramatic increase on agricultural production)similar to the one o the 1960/1970s, and or the rst
time in sub-Saharan Arica’? It is too early to draw
conclusions, but what is already possible to observe
is an increased international and domestic interest
in armland by governments and private companies,
primarily in Arica and Latin America (World Bank,
2011). Te prolieration o land investments have raised
concerns over their impact on domestic ood security
1 This article par tly builds on the SIWI report: Jägerskog, A ., Cascao, A., Hårsmar, M. and Kim. K., (2012), ”Land Acquisitions: How Will TheyImpact Transboundary Waters? ”. Report Nr. 30, SIWI, Stockholm
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46
in host countries (Matondi et al., 2011) and on the
implications they have on customary land uses and
the rights o local populations, which in some cases
are eared to be ignored during large scale agricultural
and hydropower developments without appropriate
dialogue and agreement (Deininger, 2011).
o date, research o land acquisitions has largely
ocused on the terms and conditions o the contractsor investment and leasing o land, which are oten
ot made public or are unclear (Cotula, 2012). Te
potentially signicant eect that these investments
will have on water resources, at the local, national and
transboundary level has not yet been adequately ana-
lysed. Tis chapter outlines some o the key questions
as they relate to the land-water nexus and also discusses
potential repercussions or ood security.
Land, ood and water As outlined in the introductory chapter to this pub-
lication (Jønch Clausen, this volume) and also un-
derscored by the International Food Policy Research
Institute (Von Braun, J. & Meinzen-Dick R, 2009)
ood security is an increasingly global problem. It also
is becoming a more important political priority o
increasing complexity as the prospects or supplying
ood are strongly impacted by population growth, the
eects o climate change, new technologies, sharply
increasing energy demands and shits in consumption
patterns. Tus, the increasing land acquisitions seem
logical, at least rom the investors’ perspective. I you
cannot obtain ood security through supplies at home
– due to scarcity o ertile land or water resources –
and do not trust a volatile international ood market
then the investments in overseas armland appear as a
natural step. However, critical questions on their im-
pacts on land rights, water allocation and ood market
mechanisms need to be investigated. An importantissue is also the costs, benets and trade-os that
arise when arable land is used or energy production
(to create biouels) rather than ood production.
Another key concern is the potential negative impacts
land investments may have on the ood security and
customary rights o local armers and pastoralists.
In addition to potential conficts around land and
water occurring in the countries where investments
are being made, transboundary water issues will also
come to the ore. Te investors will need reliable accessto water or irrigation o its crops on the purchased
or leased land. Tis directs attention to the manage-
ment and allocation o internal water resources o the
countries as well as their shared transboundary waters
(Jägerskog et al ., 2012).
A land investment is a water investment
Few o the contracts on agricultural investment and
land acquisition are made available to the public.
Lack o transparency and non-disclosure o agree-
ments between parties have been obstacles to inves-
P h o t o : E r i k F o r h a m m a r
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47
tigate land deals on water. Cotula (2011) reviewed 12
land investment contracts in Cameroon, Ethiopia,
Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal and Sudan. Te
only consistent trend the contracts show on how they
address water is inconsistency. In some cases water is
taken into account and the terms o access is specied.
According to a contract between the governmento Mali and the Libyan government, or example,
the investors are granted water without restriction
during the wet season (June-December), but they are
obliged to grow crops which require less water dur-
ing the dry season (January-April). Another contract
signed between the governments o Sudan and Syria
allows the investors to access water resources rom the
White Nile, as well as groundwater resources. Water is
not, however, mentioned in other contracts. It seems
to be taken or granted that water comes along withthe land.
Some investors clearly view land investments as
a water investment, in particular those experiencing
shortages at home. Te new investors including India,
China, South Korea, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE ,
Kuwait and Qatar are either experiencing water short-
ages or are under severe water stress, at least in parts o
the countries. India and China are experiencing water
shortages because o the rapidly increasing utilisationo their water resources or agricultural, industrial and
domestic uses, and related environmental degradation.
Increased prosperity and population growth in both
nations, and elsewhere in ast growing economies,
have required them to ll its reshwater needs through
virtual water trade. Investing in armland overseas is
the other or complementary alternative to meet ood
demand at home.
What water will be used? Blue, green,transboundary?
Approximately 40 per cent o the world’s population
lives in transboundary river basins, and 263 inter-
national water basins account or about 50 per cent
o global land area and 40 per cent o reshwater re-
sources (Wol, 2002). Te hotspot countries or land
deals are mostly located in transboundary water basins
such as the Mekong, Nile, Niger and Zambezi.
Te governments o Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia
have attracted oreign investors to their respective
countries because o the ‘abundant’ land and water re-
sources available. Tough the arrival o these investors
and the utilisation o the transboundary water rom
the Nile Basin has not been a source o confict yet,
their implications ater they are ully implemented
may spark uture diplomatic conficts with the down-
stream neighbours. In the Mekong River basin, China,
the upstream riparian state, has been involved withthe Economic Land Concession o Cambodia, the
downstream riparian state as well as the country most
reliant on the basin. Unlike the case o the Xayaburi
dam in Laos, which is under negotiations by a Tai
developer and put on hold (Hookway, 2011), the water
use in oreign land concessions in Cambodia and Laos
has not been a topic in intergovernmental dialogues
in MRC (Baird, 2011; Saracini, 2011).
In sub-Saharan Arica, 96 per cent o the cultivated
land is currently rained (FAO AQUASA, 2012).Rained agriculture utilises ‘green water’, i. e. the
water that is in the soil moisture. ‘Blue water’ reers to
the water available in rivers and in aquiers. Globally,
rained agriculture is the most common practice or
ood production, especially in developing countries.
In many developing regions, a lack o irrigation a-
cilities and hydraulic engineering structures limits
the use o blue water. I the investors are allowed to
construct irrigation acilities and other inrastructurein the leased arm land, blue water use would increase.
Tis would increase agricultural production in the
region, and likely will increase the use o transbound-
ary water resources (Jägerskog et al., 2012).
Regulationsandinstitutions:Cantheyhelp
overcome the grey area?
It is too early to judge i the current land deals will
contribute to increased ood productivity, ood security
and trade at the global scale. It is also dicult to assessat this time whether the positive impacts (inrastructure
development, jobs, technology transer, etc) will out-
weigh the negatives impacts at the national and local
levels in the countries where armland is being leased.
Te regulatory environment that oversees land deals
is currently lled with several grey areas. Tere is a
lack o both clear regulations and institutions that
could deal with potential conficts o interests between
the dierent users o land and water resources. Te
adoption o principles at the global, regional and na-
tional levels could help ensure that land deals provide
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48
a development opportunity with benets or all the
parties involved.
A number o international initiatives have emerged
to develop policies aimed at making large scale agri-
cultural investments environmentally, socially and
economically sustainable. FAO, IFAD, UNCAD and
the World Bank have agreed upon seven principles or
“responsible agro-investments” (RAI, 2010) (See box 1).
In addition, the “Voluntary Guidelines on the Re-
sponsible Governance o enure o Land, Fisheries and
Forests in the Context o National Food Security”
adopted by FAO in May 2012 barely mentioned water.
While water is not explicitly mentioned in the RAI
principles it is inherent in almost all them. It would be
useul i water was also recognised in the international
principles or responsible agro-investments as well as
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49
Box 1:
Seven principles or “responsible
agro-investments” (RAI, 2010)
Principle 1: Existing rights to land and associated
natural resources are recognised and respected.
Principle 2: Investments do not jeopardise ood
security but rather strengthen it.
Principle 3: Processes or accessing land and
other resources and then making associated in-
vestments are transparent, monitored, and ensure
accountability by all stakeholders, within a proper
business, legal, and regulatory environment.
Principle 4: All those materially aected are con-
sulted, and agreements rom consultations are re-
corded and enorced.
Principle 5: Investors ensure that projects re-
spect the rule o law, refect industry best prac-
tice, are viable economically, and result in durable
shared value.
Principle 6: Investments generate desirable so-
cial and distributional impacts and do not increase
vulnerability.
Principle 7: Environmental impacts due to a pro-
ject are quantied and measures taken to encour-
age sustainable resource use while minimising the
risk/magnitude o negative impacts and mitigating
them. (RAI, 2010).
more clearly spelt out in the voluntary guidelines.
Otherwise, there is great risk that water rights, and
impacts on water quality, may be orgotten or ignored.
Te adoption o legal principles and mechanisms
could also help increase transparency. Regulations
related to the current and uture land deals could
mitigate the negative impacts the deals can have onthe local populations and the environment. Regional
institutions, such as Regional Economic Commissions
(RECs) and River Basin Organisations (RBOs, could
also play an important role, in particular when the
water resources that are used on the lands come rom
transboundary sources. However, the development o
the national land and water resources or the national
socio-economic development o the countries is stil l in
the domain o sovereign states, and it is not expectedthat this will change. aking the potential transbound-
ary eects o the land deals into account could provide
an opening or riparian states to delegate some advisory
and coordination unctions to the RECs and RBOs to
promote integrated management approach to land and
water resources, without countries relinquishing their
sovereign rights. Agricultural development, namely
through the expansion o irrigation, had been oten
excluded rom the agenda o these institutions due to
its politically sensitive character.
Forming a air land market
Te market or armland and water will become an
increasingly large part o the global political economy
and the global ood and energy markets. Current and
uture ‘land deals’ can potentially contribute to an
increase in agricultural production and help grow
more ood, cash-crops and biouels. Te question is:
who is going to benet rom this ‘green revolution’? Asymmetric power relations between regions, coun-
tries, and economic sectors are expected to play a role
in determining the benets and costs that land and
water deals will bring or the dierent parties. Regula-
tions are crucial to ensure that all parties gain a air
deal and that the land and water resources are used
eciently. Trough the adoption o international and
regional principles and delegation o powers to regional
institutions, it is possible to better protect the custom-
ary rights o local populations, decrease the negativeimpacts o the deals on the environment and endorse
basin-wide integrated land and water management.
Tis would promote airer terms o trade between the
countries and corporations investing in land and the
host countries and local populations. It would also
help ensure that those investments enhance regional
and national ood security in Arica, Southeast Asia,
Latin America and globally.
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50
Reerences
Allan, J.A (2011), Vir tual water: Tackling the threat
to our planet’s most precious resource. London:
I.B.Tauris.
Anseeuw, Ward, et al. (2011), Land rights and the
rush or land: Findings o the global commercialpressures on land research project’. (Rome: Inter-
national Land Coalition).
Baird, I. G. (2011), ‘Turning Land into Capital, Turning
People into Labour: Primitive Accumulation and
the Arrival o Large-Scale Economic Land
Concessions in the Lao People’s Democratic
Republic’. Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary
Inquiry, 5 (1), 10-26.
Conca, Ken (2006), Governing water. Massachusetts:
MIT Press.
Cotula, L. (2011), Land deals in Arica: What is in the
contracts? London: IIED.
Deininger, K. (2011), Challenges posed by the new
wave o armland investment. Journal of Peasant
Studies, 38 (2), 217-47.
Economist (2011), The surge in land deals – when
others are grabbing their land. The Economist,
May 5th, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2012 rom
www.economist.com/node/18648855.Economist (2012) The visible hand. The Economist,
January 21, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2012 rom
www.economist.com/node/21542931.
GSP (2012). The report o The United Nations
Secretary-General’s high-level panel on Global
Sustainability. New York: United Nations.
HighQuest Partners (2010) Private Financial Sector
Investment in Farmland and Agricultural Inrastruc-
ture. OECD Food, Agriculture and Fishing Working
Papers 33, OECD, Paris.
Jägerskog, A., Cascao, A., Hårsmar, M. and Kim. K.,
(2012). Land acquisitions: How Will They
Impact Transboundary Waters? Report Nr. 30,
SIWI, Stockholm.
Matondi, P, Havnevik, K., and Beyene, A. (2011),Biouels, Land Grabbing and Food Security in
Arica. London and New York: ZED Books.
RAI ‘Principles or Responsible Agricultural
Investment (RAI) that Respects Rights. Livelihoods
and Resources. Retrieved July 2, 2012, rom
www.responsibleagroinvestment.org/rai/
node/256.
Reardon and Barrett (2000) Agroindustrialisation,
globalization and international development: an
overview o issues, patterns and determinants.
Agricultural Economics (23) 195-205.
Von Braun, J. and Meinzen-Dick R. (2009); ’Land
grabbing’ by oreign investors in developing coun-
tries: risks and opportunities. IFPRI Policy brie, No.
13. International Food Policy Research Institute,
Washington DC.
Saracini, N. (2011), ‘Cambodia or sale’, in M.
Haakansson (ed.), Stolen land stolen uture.
Copenhagen: DanchurchAid.Smaller, C. and H. Mann (2009). A thirst or distant
lands – Foreign investment in agricultural land and
water. IISD, Winnipeg, Canada.
Wol, Aaron (2002). Confict prevention and resolu-
tion in water systems. London: Elgar Press.
Deininger, K, and Byerlee, D, (2011). Rising global
interest in armland. Washington D.C.: World Bank.
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bank.org/content/book/9780821385913.
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Fding a Thirsty World
Challngs and Oortunitis or a Watr and Food Scur Futur
This report presents the latest thinking and new
approaches to emerging and persistent challenges to
achieve ood security in the 21st century. It ocuses
on critical issues that have received less attention
in the literature to date, such as: ood waste, land
acquisitions, gender aspects o agriculture, and early
warning systems or agricultural emergencies. It also
oers perspectives on how to better manage water
and ood linkages.