Uniting agriculture and nature for poverty reduction

Water-Energy-Food Tradeoffs

Scientific approaches to implementing the nexus—Examples from the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)

Andrew Noble, Director WLE

Acknowledgements to Stuart Carlson and the Milwaukee Journal

Sentinel

Why CGIAR WLE?

Correlation of food and energy prices – and rising

Ringler, et al., 2014 in press

Why CGIAR WLE?

South Asia

SSA LAC MENA East Asia OECD0

102030405060708090

100

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

Access to sanitation (%) Access to food (%) Energy use (kwh/cap)

Access to sanitation (%) Energy use (kwh/cap)Share of non-malnourished children (%)

The poorest have limited access to water, food and modern forms of energy

Source: WDI 2011 and IFPRI IMPACT

Uniting agriculture and nature for poverty reduction

Global Risks Report 2014, World Economic

Forum

‘Water crisis’ is the third highest

global risk

..extreme weather, climate change and

biodiversity loss also very high

. . . WHERE? Targeted interventions in 9 focal and 4 priority focal regions

Where we work

Example 1: Andean BasinsRewarding the value of Ecosystem Services provided by upstream Farmers …

My farm participates in the

Management of the Reventazon

River Watershed (ICE)

For better hydropower outcomes

Uniting agriculture and nature for poverty reduction

Example 2: Aral Sea Basin Groundwater irrigation (GWI) has higher energy and water

use efficiency compared to traditional Lift Irrigation (LI)

Crop Water productivity, kg/m3

Energy productivity (kg/Kwh)

  LI GWI LI GWI

         

Cotton 0.19 0.21 0.25 2.10

Vegetables 0.59 1.00 1.65 7.93

Maize for silage 1.99 1.46 2.61 14.17

Sorghum 0.55 1.66 1.54 3.30

Alfalfa 0.59 0.78 0.78 1.56

Apricots 0.16 0.51 0.44 4.92

Grapevines 0.11 0.70 0.15 1.37

GW irrigation

• Agricultural growth in West Bengal had slumped by more than half

• Research identified that a major obstacle to agricultural productivity was getting access to groundwater

• New policies recommended by IWMI were adopted to reduce ‘red-tape’ and improve groundwater access for smallholder farmers.

• The policy change could benefit more than 5.6 million smallholders

Example 3: West Bengal – easing regulatory and pricing barriers

Source: Aditi Mukherji

Example 4: Global: Water PollutionAgricultural N emissions increase by 47-61% between 2003 and 2050 and

emissions of P by 6-20%, depending on climate change scenario; Improved nutrient use efficiency and RRR can substantially reduce but not reverse

increases in N & P emissions

N emissions from agriculture, 2050, baseline

Uniting agriculture and nature for poverty reduction

Using business models to turn waste into an asset

• Solid waste and fecal sludge composting in Asia and Africa could save billions of US$ per year, assuming a market for only 25% of the urban organic waste.

• Greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced to up to 13 million tons CO2-e per year.

Fortifier

WithFortifier

Without Fortifier

Turning septage into Fertilizer

WLE’s research and projects are at the heart of the nexus thinking

WLE brings together the research power of 11 CGIAR centres and the FAO along with hundreds of regional and local partners to:

• Look beyond the farm-level to sustainable development within global ecosystems at different scales

• Foster innovative thinking on agriculture, natural resources management, gender and poverty alleviation

• Support big, bold solutions to difficult problems through out-of-box thinking and multidisciplinary approaches.

Uniting agriculture and nature for poverty reduction

Thank You

wle.cgiar.org

wle.cgiar.org/

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