Water-scarce solutions

What interventions improve farm income and productivity while tackling water scarcity?

Photo: Jervis Sundays, Kenya Red Cross Society, via USAID.

How can we farm without degrading our soil and depleting our water? And farm in a way that increases productivity so that we meet the Sustainable Development Goal of “zero hunger” by 2030? Short-term gains in productivity without care for their environmental impact will quickly—and literally—turn to dust. This is why farmers face an urgent need to adopt sustainable agricultural practices that match the need for increased productivity with the need to preserve soil and water for future generations.

There is no way to do this without buy-in from farmers, especially small-scale producers. Often among the most vulnerable households in the most vulnerable parts of the world, they are the major contributors to the food supply—and the key to ending hunger. Farmers know their land in a way that no one else can, and interventions cannot succeed if farmers don’t understand them and embrace them.

This evidence synthesis looks at the most promising incentives for farmers to adopt new practices addressing water scarcity, a problem that confronts farmers around the world from Nepal to Nigeria to the U.S. state of Nebraska.