Presentation by Mr. Atef Swelam (ICARDA), Technical Session 8: “Water productivity as the cornerstone of water-limited food production.” Monday 21/10/2019 Cairo, Egypt, October 20-24, 2019. The 2nd Cairo Water Week (CWW)

1. International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
icarda.org cgiar.org
A CGIAR Research Center
Improving water productivity: options at farm level
Atef Swelam and Jacques Wery
Cairo Water Week, October 21, 2019

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Water Productivity (WP): a framework of Indicators
Consumed (depleted)
• Evaporation
• Transpiration
• Quality deterioration
What water?
• Quality (EC)
• Sources
• Location (GW depth)
• Time available
What return?
• Biomass, grain, fruit, meat,
milk, fish (kg)
• Income ($)
• Social benefits (employment)
• Nutrition (call., protein,
carbohydrates, fat)
• Environmental benefits (C)
WP =
𝑹𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏
𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒅
Data Quality?
• Measurement (ET)
• Modeling
• Remote Sensing

3. How can we shift from current practices to best practices
to achieve the potential production?

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Water/Soil/Crops management have a strong influence on
water productivity
Mechanized Raisedbed Technology
Mole drain practice to improve drainage efficiency and improve soil quality
Irrigation infrastructure improvement
Co-design of water productive and nutrition sensitive farming systems
Mulching practice
Deficit irrigation practice
Update ET measurement and upgrade Kc for better water management
Quantification of crop water productivity
Scaling out/up the GAP to improve WP

5. Mechanized Raisedbed (Evaporation )Farmer practices (Evaporation )
+
-
MRB
Technology

6. Soil moisture uniformity distribution to avoid water stress in the middle rows
Evaporation + Transpiration
-
Yield

7. FP MRB

8. MRB: Better seed distributionFP: Bad seed distribution
Waterlogging due to heavy rain and/or
over-irrigation
Safe disposal of runoff

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Mechanized Raisedbed Technology
12% of Egypt’s total wheat area (160,000 ha)
• Less irrigation water (- 25%)
• More yields (+30%)
• Less seeds (-50%)
Similar Systems and Contexts
Water/Soil/Crops management have a strong influence on water productivity

10. Mole drain practice to improve drainage efficiency and improve soil quality
• reduce soil salinity by 15%
• increase yield by 10%
• increase farm income by 20%

11. Before
After
Irrigation infrastructure improvement

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Co-design of water productive and nutrition sensitive farming systems
• also in soil: sub-
surface irrigation
• WT contribution
Same biomass (with the right variety)
Less water used (up to 30%)
Produce electricity
(Marrou et al. 2013. European Journal of Agronomy)
Integrate Crops, Vegetables, Forages/livestocks
and Fruit Trees….and more
in Multilayer Systems

13. Mulching practice
Mulching of alternate furrows and
irrigation with saline water on a salt-
affected soil
• Decrease ET by 12%
• Increase in yields by 10%
• Increase in WP by 14%

14. 75%ET, 100%N
DI ETc
125%ET, 100%N
Low quality yield
=
low income
High quality yield
=
high income
• A useful option for improved on-farm
water management under shortage of
water supply condition
• Option for adaptation to climate
change
• Farmers adoption?

15. Sugarbeet Maize Pomegranate
LE = Rn - G - H

16. 2015-162014-15
Impact of variability or extreme weather events on agricultural systems productivity

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Informing policies on trends, options and trade-offs
“The analysis shows that achieving high AWP in all the region would either increase crop production
by 8 million tons or save 8.1 BCM of water annually maintaining current production levels”
Untapped potential of water savings and food security in the Euphrates-Tigress river basin through improved
agricultural water productivity (Oweis et al., submitted, 2019)
Hot spots of high and low water productivity in the irrigated areas for year 2002, 2006 and 2008
Euphrates- Tigress basin (project funded by SIDA)

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3 ha
3 million ha
300 k ha30 k ha
3 billion ha
Improving agroecosystems productivity by scaling innovations and measuring impacts

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Quantification of crop water productivity in the Nile Delta over last three decades
• Determining what crops have the highest water productivity in order to better planning the agricultural
policy based on comparative advantages of these crops in a particular climatic conditions
• Establishing big data would be use as reference for researchers and decision makers
• Helping irrigation water planner for better improve the supply system according to the actual crow water
requirements

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Where is farmer from big data?
Big data for all: can it help improve agricultural productivity?
Stockholm Water Week, August 28, 2019

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• The multidimensional nature of Water Productivity
• Explore trade-offs and synergies (among WPs and
with P)
• At different scales (field, farm, watershed, country)
• Quality of data  more measurements of WP
• Opportunities to increase WP at farm and
community levels
• Sustainability of irrigated agriculture should be
grounded in diversity
Conclusion

23. Farmer is the Focal Point for Improving AWP
Thank You
On-Farm
InterventionsResearch
Gaps