The present situation calls for the integrated management of the water used in agriculture, a challenge that senior agricultural officials from the Americas discussed in Mexico at the meeting of IICA’s Executive Committee.
Mexico City, June 18, 2013 (IICA). Agricultural production, industry and energy generation are just some of the activities that will vie for water in Latin America and the Caribbean in the years ahead, with population growth another factor in the equation. This development will call for new water management models, as delegations from 20 countries acknowledged at a meeting in Mexico convened by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
Agriculture, which will have to produce food for a burgeoning population, uses nearly 70% of the water extracted from the environment. The sector is therefore in urgent need of new productive paradigms that take into account not only greater competition, but also the fact that less water is available and there is more social awareness of the importance of using water responsibly.
IICA’s Executive Committee, which met in the Mexican capital from June 17-18, was informed of the progress being made with a technical proposal that will be presented to the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA) – the Institute’s highest governing body –, at a meeting in Argentina in September. That event will be used to draft a hemispheric agenda aimed at improving the sustainable use of water in agriculture.
“IICA is developing the document with its member countries. In Argentina, it will form the basis for the discussions of the Ministers of Agriculture, who will task the Institute with supporting the actions called for in the agenda,” explained the Director General of IICA, Víctor M. Villalobos.
“The production of food, fibers and energy will have to double over the next 40 years if it is to meet the demand created by a burgeoning world population, improved economic conditions and changes in lifestyles,” reads the proposal, entitled Water: Food for the land, which is also the theme of the forthcoming meeting of the IABA.
Given this trend, agricultural productivity will have to increase. “For practical purposes, that means producing more on the same amount of land, with fewer inputs – particularly water – and applying sustainable methods,” the document adds.
Agriculture has a leading role to play in ensuring the sustainability of the resource in the competitive environment that is expected: “it must improve the way in which water is used in this activity, in order to release volumes of water for use in other sectors or to reuse the water released by other sectors. These changes in demand will lead to increases in the cost of the resource, so answers will have to be found to the question of how, and by whom, those costs are to be met,” states the proposal prepared by IICA and professionals at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Argentina.
The meeting of IICA’s Executive Committee was sponsored by Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA).
Figures related to agriculture’s threefold objectives
The objectives of agriculture in the Americas are threefold: to guarantee food supply, contribute to the sustainability of natural resources and promote inclusive development in the countries. Although the average water availability in the Americas would appear to be sufficient, the reality is that this varies.
For example, annual water availability in Haiti is less than 1700 m3 per person, while in Suriname the figure per capita is put at more than 300,000 m3. In Central America, where average annual water availability is roughly 23,000 m3 per person, the distribution of this resource is subject to seasonal and geographic variations that result in periods of scarcity and others of great abundance.
This is only one of the challenges, however. “Increased pollution of surface water means that many urban centers increasingly depend on groundwater to meet their needs, but often with unreliable supply systems. One of the great challenges is to develop a system that integrates groundwater and surface water management,” the proposal states.
“The agriculture of a given country is made up of many forms of production and types of farming, which should all enjoy the same equitable and universal right to access the water they need. This raises special issues that must be addressed by means of public policies designed to ensure that the resource is managed in a participatory manner, [and] that users are involved,” it adds.
The delegations endorse the proposal
Bryce Quick, Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service, thanked IICA for the proposal and said it would be used as the starting point for the negotiations on water and agriculture that would be taking place at the IABA.
Other delegates felt it important that specific issues be included: Carlos Anzueto, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Guatemala, and Andrés Bernal, Head of the Legal Adviser’s Office of the Ministry of Agriculture of Colombia, asked the Institute to include the role of the State in promoting irrigation systems, especially small and medium-sized ones.
Luciano Vidal, a member of Mexico’s delegation to the meeting of IICA’s Executive Committee, requested that research on groundwater be promoted, because the cost of extraction was becoming an increasingly important factor in his country’s agricultural production. “The efficient use of water will also make it possible to intensify the efforts to combat hunger,” he added.
For more information, contact:
evangelina.beltran@iica.int
