{"id":17912,"date":"2016-02-17T13:16:28","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T18:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=17912"},"modified":"2016-02-17T13:16:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T18:16:28","slug":"better-water-use-can-cut-global-food-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=17912","title":{"rendered":"Better water use can cut global food gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Better water use can cut global food gap<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"CROP--Irrigation_system\"<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
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An irrigation system on a pumpkin patch in a semi-arid area of New Mexico in southwestern US.
\nImage:\u00a0Daniel Schwen<\/a>\u00a0via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Scientists say that forecasts of a world food shortage need not prove as disastrous as previously thought if humans learn to use water more effectively.<\/strong><\/div>\n

LONDON, 16 February, 2016<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Although growing human numbers, climate change and other crises threaten the world\u2018s ability to feed itself, researchers believe that if we used water more sensibly that would go a long way towards closing the global food gap.<\/p>\n

Politicians and experts have simply underestimated what better water use can do to save millions of people from starvation, they say.<\/p>\n

For the first time, scientists\u00a0have assessed the\u00a0global potential for growing more food<\/a>\u00a0with the same amount of water. They found that production could rise by 40%, simply by optimising rain use and careful irrigation. That is half the increase the UN says is needed to eradicate world hunger by mid-century.<\/p>\n

The lead author of the study, Jonas J\u00e4germeyr, an Earth system analyst at the\u00a0Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research<\/a>(PIK), says the potential yields from good water management have not been taken fully into account.<\/p>\n

Climate resilience<\/strong><\/p>\n

Already parched areas, he says, have the most potential for increases in yield, especially water-scarce regions in China, Australia, the western US, Mexico and South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out that crop water management is a largely under-rated approach to reducing undernourishment and increasing the climate resilience of smallholders,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In theory, the gains could be massive, but the authors acknowledge that getting local people to adopt best practice remains a challenge.<\/p>\n

They have been careful to limit their estimates to existing croplands, and not to include additional water resources. But they have taken into account a number of very different water management options, from low-tech solutions for smallholders to the industrial scale.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Better water use can cut global food gap An irrigation system on a pumpkin patch in a semi-arid area of New Mexico in southwestern US. Image:\u00a0Daniel Schwen\u00a0via Wikimedia Commons Scientists say that forecasts of a world food shortage need not prove as disastrous as previously thought if humans learn to use water more effectively. LONDON, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,9245,12465,2495,319,11911,866,5882,4490,3164],"class_list":["post-17912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-agriculture","tag-climate-news-network","tag-climate-resilience","tag-crops","tag-food","tag-paul-brown","tag-water","tag-water-resources","tag-water-scarcity","tag-water-use"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17913,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17912\/revisions\/17913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}