Increasing food production and reducing poverty depends on sustainable water and energy sources
On 22 March, World Water Day focused attention on one of the world’s precious resources: freshwater. This year’s theme emphasizes the interdependency of water and energy. Water is crucial for generating energy either directly or indirectly; and energy is needed to pump, treat and transport water to a wide range of users. It is a highly complex interaction.
Water and energy are essential for increasing food production and reducing rural poverty, two of IFAD’s main focus areas. Global population is expected to exceed nine billion by 2050, with most of the growth happening in developing countries. Food production will need to increase by an estimated 60 per cent, and for that sustainable water and energy will be needed. The bulk of this increase will have to come from developing countries.
Poor people in rural areas of developing countries have inadequate access to clean, reliable water and energy supplies, says Audrey Nepveu, technical adviser on water and rural infrastructure in IFAD’s Policy and Technical Advisory Division. They have fewer opportunities to increase food production to meet their household needs or to sell, and a greater chance of falling deeper into poverty. With the growing demand for more food, improving water and energy efficiency is imperative.
Research has recently demonstrated that there is sufficient water to sustain food, energy, industrial and environmental needs during the 21st century. But what water-related conflicts and shortages show is that there is a failure to make efficient and fair use of the water available. This is a political and management challenge, more than a resource concern.
The water-energy-food nexus
Ensuring that water and energy systems are available and sustainable is an integral part of many of IFAD’s programmes and projects.
Water, energy and food have a complicated relationship, Nepveu says. It is important to get the most energy we can out of water whether it is hydroelectric or calories from food and use the least amount of energy possible to provide water where it is needed. Considering the water-energy-food nexus in context is key to agricultural sustainability.
But often food (including crops, livestock and fish) is left out of this equation, even though agriculture accounts for 70 to 80 per cent of water withdrawals.
We really need to call it the water-energy-food nexus’ because there are complex tradeoffs involved in food production, Nepveu says. Most crops grown provide for food, feed and fibre. Others, such as jatropha or sweet sorghum, are grown for fuel.
Crops can be grown in a purely rainfed environment thanks to water stored in the soil, and a number of IFAD projects include soil and water conservation to improve these systems, as in Jordan’s Yarmouk valley. Alternatively, crops can be irrigated. In a number of countries, IFAD finances micro-irrigation projects to help smallholder farmers particularly women optimize the water they have available and provide a slow but regular flow to their fields. In the Gash Barka region of Eritrea, projects support spate irrigation, which uses seasonal floods of rivers, streams, ponds and lakes to fill water storage canals.
The food that gives us energy to live itself consumes energy, and also water. Consider for example one glass of milk. It takes 200 litres of water to produce a glass of milk, which provides 122 kCal to the person drinking it (see table for more examples).
But how much energy goes into making available those 200 litres of water? Energy is on both sides of the equation. Energy may need to be spent for water, as when a pump lifts water from a stream or from underground. Less obvious is the energy consumed by women in developing countries who often spend hours every day collecting water for domestic use and backyard gardening.
A holistic, integrated and contextual approach
Because there is such wide variety, Nepveu says there is no one-size-fits-all’ solution for water and energy inputs. Instead, it is important that we look at the context, and look at it holistically, to determine the sustainability of any given approach.
For example, how much energy is used to power an irrigation system that produces food and energy crops? Does the food being grown affect local food security? Using water to grow an inedible energy crop such as jatropha might appear to have a net negative effect on food security. However, jatropha can be intercropped with food crops. The sale of biofuel crops, often through contract farming, can increase the incomes of smallholder farmers, which they can use to buy food provided that food is locally available.
Issues of access intersect with issues of resource use and energy production and consumption, Nepveu says. We have to understand what the best choices are for a given setting or community to both harness their resources and conserve them.
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)