Agriculture accounts for most of the renewable freshwater resource withdrawals in Malawi, yet food insecurity and water scarcity remain as major challenges. Despite Malawi's vast water resources, climate change, coupled with increasing population and urbanisation are contributing to increasing water scarcity. Improving crop water productivity has been identified as a possible solution to water and food insecurity, by producing more food with less water, that is, to produce "more crop per drop". This study evaluated crop water productivity from 2000 to 2013 by assessing crop evapotranspiration, crop production and agricultural gross domestic product (Ag GDP) contribution for Malawi. Improvements in crop water productivity were evidenced through improved crop production and productivity. These improvements were supported by increased irrigated area, along with improved agronomic practices. Crop water productivity increased by 33% overall from 2000 to 2013, resulting in an increase in maize production from 1.2 million metric tons to 3.6 million metric tons, translating to an average food surplus of 1.1 million metric tons. These developments have contributed to sustainable improved food and nutrition security in Malawi, which also avails more water for ecosystem functions and other competing economic sectors.
Multiple agricultural water management (AWM) technologies are being promoted worldwide in rainfed agro-ecological production systems, such as the Limpopo River Basin, to close the yield gap, enhance food security and reduce poverty, but evidences on yield gains and environmental impacts are varied. This paper conducts a review of the performance of AWM technologies against conventional farmer practices to produce adequate evidence on cereal yield and field runoff changes. With the interrogation of literature from 1980 to 2013 using seven AWM groupings, enough evidence was found that AWM technologies can deliver substantial benefits of increased crop yield and water productivity with reduced environmental impacts. Using random effects model, the standardized mean difference (SMD) of yield between AWM and control was 0.27, while SMD of water productivity was 0.46, indicating the effectiveness of the technologies (SMD > 0). Subgroup analyses showed greatest yield responses on silty-clay-loam, clay-loam and sandy soils compared to clay and loam-sandy soils, and higher yield increase under low rainfall regime (200-500 mm) than under high rainfall regime (500-800 mm). Large yield change variations for different AWM technologies present a huge opportunity for meeting the existing yield gaps and enhancing coping capacity in dry years and under climate change.
In the Olifants river basin about 60% of water resource is used in agriculture (DWAF, 2004). Agriculture faces increasing competition from other water users, constraining its contribution to economic growth. Spatial and temporal water shortage for irrigation affects small scale farmers resulting in conflicts on sharing the little available water. This paper presents the River Basin Game (RBG) as a tool for equitable and sustainable water resource use in the Sofaya irrigation scheme in Sekororo, Olifants in South Africa. The area provides an ideal setup for investigative work described below as it lend itself to a mixture of large-scale and small-scale irrigation farmers sharing the same water resource.The river basin game addresses irrigation water use efficiency and access between upstream and downstream users. It is applied with the development of new ideas on the ground, supported by lessons learnt at local, regional and international audiences. The RBG was first developed at University of Anglia, United Kingdom (UK) as a teaching tool and tested in Tanzania under the project Raising Irrigation Productivity And Releasing Water for Intersectoral Needs (RIPARWIN). The current version of the game incorporates a groundwater component.The results reported are from two RBG workshops held in Sekororo. The first workshop consisted of small-scale farmers from different irrigation schemes and researchers, while the second consisted of farmers from Sofaya irrigation scheme.Farmers were able to relate to the board game representation to their reality and accepted the schematic representation of their reality. Firstly, the RBG demonstrated that role-playing can benefit understanding of top-tail inequities of water supply. Secondly, that solutions lie with communities, particularly if given support by formal institutions such as universities, research institutions, government and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) willing to respond to their needs. The game has proved to be an effective discussion support tool that should be upscaled to the Olifants river basin.
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