The prospect of a future plagued by water shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa is coming under the spotlight this week, in Nairobi.
About 200 scientists and decision makers are meeting in the Kenyan capital under the auspices of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to discuss the matter. The CGIAR consists of 16 independent research organisations located in countries around the world.
The conference has also been used to launch the CGIAR Challenge Programme on Water and Food. This initiative will try to link civil society and research institutes in a bid to make food production more water efficient, in Africa and elsewhere.
According to CGIAR statistics, up to 831-million people in Sub-Saharan Africa could find themselves without access to potable water by 2025, if governments continue with current policies of water provision.
This is expected to have a knock-on effect with crop yields. If present trends continue, the region might face a 23% shortfall in agricultural production by 2025, leading to greater dependence on international food aid.
The CGIAR figures echo findings by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). In a statement issued before the World Water Forum that was held in the Japanese city of Kyoto earlier this year, the FAO noted that “While there is no global water crisis, the serious water and food security problems in some developing countries and regions need to be urgently addressed.”
“If we want to avoid a future food crisis, we need more investments to achieve productivity gains in agriculture in developing countries using existing and new technologies,” the agency added.
The scientists who are meeting in Nairobi say the key to producing more food with less water may lie in tailoring the choice of crops to the areas in which they are grown.
Isaya Sijali, an irrigation specialist at the National Agriculture Research Laboratory in Nairobi, says “Let crops that can grow in arid areas do so. If it is a wet land, concentrate on crops that do well there, then let there be mutual trade at local or regional level.”
He adds that this will entail the development of technologies which can monitor the water intake of plants: “(If) one can quantify how much water is used per crop … farmers can tell which plants need less water to grow, and concentrate more on them.”
Earlier this week, Professor Frank Rijsberman, chairman of the Challenge Programme steering committee, took the concept of crop specificity a step further. He told delegates that “Instead of striving for food self-sufficiency, water-short countries should import food from water abundant countries.”
His suggestion drew prompt criticism from Elly Wamari, an agricultural economist based in Nairobi, who fears this might open the way for sub-standard produce to be sold in Africa. “We should not just accept this blindly, because even food that is not fit for human consumption will find its way to the continent,” he said.
Wamari also emphasised the importance of indigenous knowledge about food production. “In the traditional setting, there are certain methods that were used to ensure high yield, and they worked. Replanting of original seeds must not be forgotten,” he explained.
Other specialists say the answer to water shortages may lie in intensive water harvesting. “During heavy rain seasons, it is important for as much water as possible to be trapped for future use. This saves the country from situations of water shortages,” said Peter Ambenje, Assistant Director of Forecasting at Kenya’s Meteorological Department.
He believes that paying heed to the early warning advisories issued by meteorological stations can also save countries from the worst effects of drought, and floods.
Ambenje cites Kenya’s experiences during the droughts of 1994 and 2000 as evidence for his claim. “The 2000 drought was worse than the one in 1994, but its impact was not as severe because the government put correct measures in place after we issued them with an advisory,” he says.
The discussions on finding more effective ways to use water have also highlighted the need for increased investment in infrastructure.
According to Daniel Renault of the FAO, these investments could focus on “modernising irrigation … by building terraces … and small dams.”
The CGIAR Challenge Programme on Water and Food will study water use along nine of the world’s major rivers, including the Nile in Africa. About $60-million dollars has already been pledged to the project, and CGIAR hopes to raise a further $120-million to fund research in the first six years of the programme. – IPS