Making farmers matter

摘要

Of all the activities that need water, far and away the thirstiest is farming. Cut the use of irrigation water by 10%, it is said, and you would save more than is lost in evaporation by all other consumers. Yet farming is crucial. Not only does it provide the food that all mankind requires, but it is also a great engine of economic growth for the three-quarters of the world's poor who live in the countryside. Without water they may return to pastoralism-as some people already have in parts of the Sahel in Africa-or migrate, or starve. With water, they may fight their way out of poverty.