At the Rome Water Dialogue, FAO chief Qu Dongyu called for agriculture to reduce, reuse, recycle and replenish water, and FAO launched IRMA, a digital tool to show where irrigation is feasible and most needed.
EnvironmentThe Environment Agency has put Yorkshire in drought after its fifth-driest April-September on record, England's third drought in five years, while the Met Office warns of wetter, stormier weather that could bring run-off and erosion.
CropsAt a field day at ICAR-RCER's Sabajpura farm near Patna, Bihar's agriculture principal secretary Narmadeshwar Lal promised state support to spread raised-and-sunken beds, direct-seeded rice, micro-irrigation and integrated crop-fish systems.
AgrotechIndia's agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told farmers from Vidisha, Raisen and Sehore at an IARI training programme to adopt micro-irrigation, crop diversification and hydroponics to get more from every drop of water.
A twelve-step Smart Valleys framework, built with 1,789 participants in 218 inland valleys of Mali, Niger and Nigeria, has farmers map water and land claims before any bund or canal is laid out.
EnvironmentAfter a record-dry summer, the Netherlands is restoring river meanders, storing more water in the IJsselmeer and capping groundwater pumping, Vice Minister Jaap Slootmaker told Down To Earth as India and the Netherlands signed water MoUs.
Researchers at Stockholm World Water Week showed how simulation models, solar pump sizing and a summer-rice ban are turning the water, energy, food and environment nexus into practice across Asia.
EnvironmentResearchers from Wageningen, IRRI and Cornell argue in Nature Water that groundwater science must move from recording depletion to finding workable pathways that balance food production, nature and long-term supply.
CropsConservation, careful diversions and 60,000 acre-feet of mitigation water from groundwater pumpers kept deliveries going toward mid-October despite a one-third cut in May.
A UKZN-Rhodes University study on a commercial farm near Pietermaritzburg measured a hemp crop using 377 mm of water over a four-month season, about 28 litres a day per plant area, with weeds between the rows taking a large share.
EnvironmentCounties in the northern Midwest and Northeast raised their share of tile-drained cropland by 8 percentage points or more between 2012 and 2022, USDA economists report.
Deputy water minister Jack Bloom told a Nampo Cape seminar that Gauteng wastes as much water each year as the Western Cape uses, only 23 of 144 water service authorities earned clean audits, 47% of wastewater plants are critical and 96 criminal cases have been opened against local authorities, loss
The St. Mary River Irrigation District is replacing the 1950s west dam of its largest reservoir, with a 50% capacity expansion planned, general manager David Westwood told Alberta Crop Diagnostic Day; since 1969 districts, the province and the Canada Infrastructure Bank have put over $1 billion into
