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Chapter 9. Feeding Seven Billion Well: Raising Water Productivity
Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain, it is not surprising that 70 percent of world water use is devoted to irrigation. Thus, raising irrigation water efficiency is central to raising water productivity overall. Using more water-efficient irrigation technologies and shifting to crops that use less water can help expand the irrigated area, even with a limited water supply. Eliminating water subsidies and energy subsidies that encourage wasteful water use allows water prices to rise to market levels. Higher water prices encourage all water users to use water more efficiently. Institutionally, local rural water users associations that directly involve those using the water in its management have raised water productivity in many countries. 15
The world now needs to launch an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled grainland productivity during the last half of the twentieth century. Land productivity is typically measured in tons of grain per hectare or bushels per acre. A comparable indicator for irrigation water is kilograms of grain produced per ton of water. Worldwide, that average is now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used. 16
Some data have been compiled on water irrigation efficiency at the international level for surface water projects—that is, dams that deliver water to farmers through a network of canals. Crop usage of irrigation water never reaches 100 percent simply because some irrigation water evaporates from the land surface, some percolates downward, and some runs off. 17
Water policy analysts Sandra Postel and Amy Vickers found that “surface water irrigation efficiency ranges between 25 and 40 percent in India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand; between 40 and 45 percent in Malaysia and Morocco; and between 50 and 60 percent in Israel, Japan, and Taiwan.” Irrigation water efficiency is affected not only by the type and condition of irrigation systems but also by soil type, temperature, and humidity. In arid regions with high temperatures, the evaporation of irrigation water is far higher than in humid regions with lower temperatures. 18
In a May 2004 meeting, China’s Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng outlined for me in some detail the plans to raise China’s irrigation efficiency from 43 percent in 2000 to
51 percent in 2010 and then to 55 percent in 2030. The steps he described included raising the price of water, providing incentives for adopting more irrigation-efficient technologies, and developing the local institutions to manage this process. Reaching these goals, he felt, would assure China’s future food security. 19
Raising irrigation water efficiency typically means shifting from the less efficient flood or furrow system to overhead sprinklers or to drip irrigation, the gold standard of irrigation efficiency. Switching from flood or furrow to low-pressure sprinkler systems reduces water use by an estimated 30 percent, while switching to drip irrigation typically cuts water use in half. 20
As an alternative to furrow irrigation, a drip system also raises yields because it provides a steady supply of water with minimal losses to evaporation. Since drip systems are both labor-intensive and water-efficient, they are well suited to countries with underemployment and water shortages, allowing farmers to raise their water productivity by using labor, which is often in surplus in rural communities. 21
A few small countries—Cyprus, Israel, and Jordan—rely heavily on drip irrigation. Among the big three agricultural producers, this more-efficient technology is used on less than 1 percent of irrigated land in India and China and roughly 4 percent of such land in the United States. 22
In recent years, the tiniest small-scale drip-irrigation systems—virtually a bucket with flexible plastic tubing to distribute the water—have been developed to irrigate a small vegetable garden with roughly 100 plants (covering 25 square meters). Somewhat larger drum systems irrigate 125 square meters. In both cases, the containers are elevated slightly, so that gravity distributes the water. Somewhat larger drip systems using plastic lines that can be moved easily are also becoming popular. These simple systems can pay for themselves in one year. By simultaneously reducing water costs and increasing yields, they can dramatically raise incomes of smallholders. 23
Sandra Postel believes that the combination of these drip technologies at various scales has the potential to profitably irrigate 10 million hectares of India’s cropland, or nearly one tenth of the total. She sees a similar potential for China, which is now also expanding its drip irrigation area to save scarce water. 24
Institutional shifts—specifically, moving the responsibility for managing irrigation systems from government agencies to local water users associations—can facilitate a more efficient use of water. Farmers in many countries are organizing locally so they can assume this responsibility. Since local people have an economic stake in good water management, they tend to do a better job than a distant government agency. 25
Mexico is a leader in this movement. As of 2002, farmers associations managed more than 80 percent of Mexico’s publicly irrigated land. One advantage of this shift for the government is that the cost of maintaining the irrigation system is assumed locally, reducing the drain on the treasury. This also means that associations often need to charge more for irrigation water. Even so, for farmers the production gains from managing their water supply more than outweigh this additional expenditure. 26
In Tunisia, where water users associations manage both irrigation and residential water, the number of associations increased from 340 in 1987 to 2,575 in 1999. Many other countries now have such bodies managing their water resources. Although the early groups were organized to deal with large publicly developed irrigation systems, some recent ones have been formed to manage local groundwater irrigation as well. They assume responsibility for stabilizing the water table with the goal of avoiding aquifer depletion and the economic disruption that it brings to the community. 27
Low water productivity is often the result of low water prices. In most countries, prices are irrationally low, belonging to an era when water was an abundant resource. As water becomes scarce, it needs to be priced accordingly. Provincial governments in northern China are raising water prices in small increments to discourage waste. A higher water price affects all water users, encouraging investment in more water-efficient irrigation technologies, industrial processes, and household appliances. 28
What is needed now is a new mindset, a new way of thinking about water use. For example, shifting to more water-efficient crops wherever possible also boosts water productivity. Rice production is being phased out around Beijing because rice is such a thirsty crop. Similarly, Egypt restricts rice production in favor of wheat. 29
Any measures that raise crop yields on irrigated land also raise the productivity of irrigation water. Similarly, anything that increases the efficiency with which grain is converted into animal protein in effect increases water productivity.
For people consuming unhealthy amounts of livestock products, moving down the food chain means not only a healthier diet and reduced health care costs but also a reduction in water use. In the United States, where annual consumption of grain as food and feed averages some 800 kilograms (four fifths of a ton) per person, a modest reduction in the consumption of meat, milk, and eggs could easily cut grain use per person by 100 kilograms. Given that there are now nearly 300 million Americans, such a reduction would cut grain use by 30 million tons and irrigation water use by 30 billion tons. 30
Reducing water use to a level that can be sustained by aquifers and rivers worldwide involves a wide range of measures not only in agriculture but throughout the economy. The more obvious steps, in addition to more water-efficient irrigation practices and more water-efficient crops, include adopting more water-efficient industrial processes and using more water-efficient household appliances. One of the less conventional steps is to shift from outdated coal-fired power plants, which require vast amounts of water for thermal cooling, to wind power—something long overdue in any case because of climate disruption. Recycling urban water supplies is another obvious step to consider in countries facing acute water shortages.
ENDNOTES:
15. Water requirements for grain production from FAO, Yield Response to Water (Rome: 1979); water use from I.A. Shiklomanov, “Assessment of Water Resources and Water Availability in the World,” Report for the Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World (St. Petersburg, Russia: State Hydrological Institute, 1998), cited in Peter H. Gleick, The World’s Water 2000–2001 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000), p. 53.
16. Water use for grain production from FAO, op. cit. note 15.
17. Sandra Postel and Amy Vickers, “Boosting Water Productivity,” in Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004), pp. 51–52.
18. Ibid.
19. Wang Shucheng, private meeting with author, Beijing, May 2004.
20. FAO, Crops and Drops (Rome: 2002), p. 17; Alain Vidal, Aline Comeau, and Hervé Plusquellec, Case Studies on Water Conservation in the Mediterranean Region (Rome: FAO, 2001), p. vii.
21. FAO, op. cit. note 20; Vidal, Comeau, and Plusquellec, op. cit. note 20.
22. Postel and Vickers, op. cit. note 17, p. 53.
23. Sandra Postel et al., “Drip Irrigation for Small Farmers: A New Initiative to Alleviate Hunger and Poverty,” Water International, March 2001, pp. 3–13.
24. Ibid.
25. For more information on water users associations, see R. Maria Saleth and Arial Dinar, Water Challenge and Institutional Response: A Cross-Country Perspective (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1999), p. 26.
26. Saleth and Dinar, op. cit. note 25, p. 6.
27. World Bank and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Summary Report, Middle East and North Africa Regional Water Initiative Workshop on Sustainable Groundwater Management, Sana’a, Yemen, 25–28 June 2000, p. 19.
28. Peter Wonacott, “To Save Water, China Lifts Price,” Wall Street Journal, 14 June 2004.
29. USDA, op. cit. note 1.
30. Population from United Nations, op. cit. note 4; grain consumption from USDA, op. cit. note 1; water calculation based on 1,000 tons of water for 1 ton of grain from FAO, op. cit. note 15.
Copyright © 2006 Earth Policy Institute