Modern irrigation is one of the success stories of the 20th century. As the world’s population doubled, irrigated farming expanded from 40 million hectares to almost 300 million hectares today – a seven-fold increase.
This revolution in water technology improved crop yields and enabled farmers to grow additional crops each year.
China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan together account for almost half the world’s irrigated area and they rely on irrigation for more than half their domestic food production. But the world’s population continues to grow and so do concerns about food security and particularly the availability of water to grow crops.
Global agricultural food production already accounts for 70 percent of all water withdrawn from rivers and aquifers. Climate change will only make matters worse.
Can agricultural water management technologies provide innovative solutions that meet this challenge of feeding a growing population by producing more food but with fewer resources?
This paper reviews the water-food-poverty nexus and examines the role that agricultural water management technologies may play in achieving world food and water security.
