On farm practices in irrigation and drainage

✍ Scribed by M. Gopalakrishnano

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 29 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1531-0353
• DOI: 10.1002/ird.509

✦ Synopsis

To provide an enabling environment for the development of their activities embracing the principles and priorities, the ICID work bodies review their priority tasks under four Strategy Themes: (i) Knowledge, (ii) Basin, (iii) Systems and (iv) On Farm. The theme ''On Farm'' was the focus during the recent ICID Council meetings at Lahore, Pakistan, in October 2008. The highlights of the report by the theme leader VPH S. Nairizi (Iran) are, in brief:

There is a great potential to increase agricultural production to meet the existing gap between food demand and supply, and reduce the numbers of hungry people as well as the undernourished. How this potential can be realized through irrigated and non-irrigated agriculture is the thrust of much research and scientific work covered during the recent past by the experts in ICID's ''On Farm'' thrust workgroups.

NON-IRRIGATED AGRICULTURE

Of agricultural production, 60% comes from non-irrigated farms covering 1.2 billion ha of land. In addition, about 6 billion ha of natural grassland and pastures contribute to the human food chain. In spite of such relatively vast rainfed cultivated and non-cultivated areas within human access that can be utilized for our welfare, the contribution of the rain-fed areas to the human food basket is in practice limited.

The productivity of rainwater in most of the regions is relatively low. There is considerable scope for improvement, which could enhance world food supplies. The scattered researches show that non-irrigated agricultural production, particularly grain production, can be doubled by: (i) better management of rainfall, (ii) some agro-technical improvements, (iii) investments in infrastructure and technology and (iv) bio-technological enhancements and farmers' awareness.