An Expert Voice on Agriculture and Water

Prof. Stefan Tangermann, Director for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Stefan Tangermann argues that increasingly scarce water resources must be carefully allocated in order to reconcile the competing demands of food production and social aspirations.

Agriculture is the major user of water in OECD countries, due to the expansion of irrigated farm area. Overuse of scarce water resources is an increasing concern. While agriculture is a major source of water pollution, it also contributes to ecosystem provision. Subsidies to agricultural production and inputs, especially for water, continue to misalign farmer incentives and aggravate overuse and pollution of water. Water use and the impact of agriculture on water resources involves complex trade-offs between economic, social and environmental demands. The major challenge is to ensure that water resources used by agriculture are best allocated among competing demands to produce food and fibre efficiently, minimise pollution and support ecosystems, while meeting social aspirations under different property right arrangements and institutional frameworks. As a higher priority is being attached to water issues, policies and actions are starting to contribute to sustainable agricultural water management in OECD countries. A mix of market-based, voluntary and regulatory approaches is being used to address these issues, including better pricing structures and Part of the SAI sustainability project introduced by Nestlé in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, in Nicaragua, focuses on improvements such as water treatment ponds. The fi rst step is simply informing farmers not to pollute the water tradable permits. A growing concern is the impact of climate change and climate variability on agriculture and the role of policies to facilitate adaptation. Water, and in particular unpolluted water, is increasingly scarce, and may become the scarcest natural resource in the future. Agriculture, as the largest single water user, has an important role to play in making sure that this resource is used properly. Given that so much that happens in agriculture is shaped by government policy, governments must see to it that their policies do not provide farmers with the wrong incentives, and that the institutions are put in place to help create the conditions under which farmers will properly take care of the scarce resource that is water.

Read more by Stefan Tangermann

 Agriculture and Water: An OECD Perspective (PDF 89kb)