Water: forgotten in the food crisis

These include the construction of small reservoirs, sustainable use of groundwater systems including artificial groundwater recharge and rainwater harvesting for smallholder vegetable gardens. Improved year- round access to water will help farmers maintain their own food security using simple supplementary irrigation techniques. The redesign of both the physical and institutional arrangements of some large and often dysfunctional irrigation schemes will also bring the required productivity increases.

Safe, risk free reuse of wastewater from growing cities will also be needed. Of course these actions need to be paralleled by development of drought- tolerant crops, and the provision of infrastructure and facilities to get fresh food to markets.

While Australia does not have all the solutions to water scarcity, many innovative approaches already adopted in Australian rural and urban areas provide examples of what may become best practice for other nations.

Australia has already invested in considerable water storage capacity to cope with drought. Further key examples are the current focus on improving water productivity in the Murray Darling Basin and innovative new policies set to overcome past over allocation of water via the recent moves to manage the Basin’s water under one authority.

Additionally, successful urban water demand management practices, the development of water grids, safe reuse of waste water and artificial recharge of groundwater are all at the international cutting edge.

Current estimates indicate that we will not have enough water to feed ourselves in 25 years time, by when the current food crisis may turn into a perpetual crisis. Just as in other areas of agricultural research and development, investment in the provision and better management of water resources has declined steadily since the green revolution.

I and my water science colleagues are raising a warning flag that significant investment in both R&D and water infrastructure development are needed, if dire consequences are to be avoided.