Agriculture's Historic Twin-Challenge Toward Sustainable Water Use and Food Supply for All

Abstract

A sustainable and just future, envisioned by the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, puts agricultural systems under a heavy strain. The century-old quandary to provide ever-growing human populations with sufficient food takes on a new dimension with the recognition of environmental limits for agricultural resource use. To highlight challenges and opportunities toward sustainable food security in the twenty first century, this perspective paper provides a historical account of the escalating pressures on agriculture and freshwater resources alike, supported by new quantitative estimates of the ascent of excessive human water use. As the transformation of global farming into sustainable forms is unattainable without a revolution in agricultural water use, water saving and food production potentials are put into perspective with targets outlined by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The literature body and here-confirmed global estimates of untapped opportunities in farm water management indicate that these measures could sustainably intensify today's farming systems at scale. While rigorous implementation of sustainable water withdrawals (SDG 6.4) might impinge upon 5% of global food production, scaling-up water interventions in rainfed and irrigated systems could over-compensate such losses and further increase global production by 30% compared to the current situation (SDG 2.3). Without relying on future technological fixes, traditional on-farm water and soil management provides key strategies associated with important synergies that needs better integration into agro-ecological landscape approaches. Integrated strategies for sustainable intensification of agriculture within planetary boundaries are a potential way to attain several SDGs, but they are not yet receiving attention from high-level development policies.

Irrigation of biomass plantations may globally increase water stress more than climate change

“…Finally, we show that implementation of more efficient water management (in scenario BECCS+SWM ) could offer a synergistic way out of the water stress dilemma. Achieving this requires the stringent implementation of such methods worldwide 34 , 45 , 46 , while the required large economic investments (10–20 billion US$ for Africa alone 47 ) would also help achieving several SDGs 48 .…”

An assessment of the water use associated with Australian diets using a planetary boundary framework

“…Much has been written about the challenge of meeting dietary needs within sustainable water use limits (40)(41) . While on average the water use associated with Australian diets is within the planetary boundary, this does not mean that there are not parts of the food system located in water-stressed areas.…”

Toward a Sustainable Agriculture Through Plant Biostimulants: From Experimental Data to Practical Applications

“…Farmers need to operate as managers of the countryside, valorizing their own by-products and using agricultural products with improved environmental profile. Therefore, searching for new technologies and approaches to boost crop productivity under optimal and sub-optimal conditions and to improve resources use efficiency (water and fertilizers) is crucial to ensure food security, while preserving soil quality and providing opportunities of business for farmers [4]. Biobased products such as biostimulants represent a sustainable, efficient technology or complement to their synthetic counterparts (i.e., agrochemicals) to improve nutrient use efficiency and secure yield stability of agricultural and horticulture crops under optimal and sub-optimal conditions [5,6].…”