New FAO Initiative Focuses on Water Management to Combat Food Insecurity

World Water Week 2012 opened today with the announcement of a new framework to address issues of water scarcity and food insecurity. Spearheaded by the FAO, Coping with Water Scarcity: An Action Framework for Agriculture and Food Security aims to improve global water management practices, particularly when it comes to agriculture.

As recent events in the US and Russia have shown once again, drought and water scarcity can have severe negative effects on global food production. FAO findings suggest that drought has contributed to lowered global food production and food price spikes almost every other year since 2007. With the global population growing and placing ever more pressure on agricultural production, sustainable food production that conserves water and uses it sensibly will be key to ensuring food security. “There is no food security without water security,” FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva said today at the World Water Week opening ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.

The new FAO initiative emphasizes concrete ways to improve water management, including modernizing irrigation, recycling and re-using wastewater, implementing mechanisms to reduce water pollution, and storing rainwater at farms to reduce drought-related risks. Such mechanisms will not only reduce water waste and the risk of water scarcity, they will also help to improve agricultural production by making sure that water is available in the coming years.

Follow the water resource discussion live throughout World Water Week.