How can farmers become more efficient?

摘要

Within human-related water uses, agriculture is by far the largest, accounting for 70% of the total fresh water withdrawals of the globe, jumping to 85% when considering only the developing countries. It is also important to note that water consumption related to human activities only represents 9% of total water consumption, mainly due to natural vegetation evapotranspira-tion, see below. Taking a bath requires 200L of water, while 20 times this amount is needed to provide adequate food per day per person. In addition, while the bath water returns as running water to the environment (with degraded quality), the water evapo-transpirated by plants, on the contrary, does not. However, the agricultural sector is not thrifty with a resource becoming scarce, particularly in developing countries where water productivity can be twice as low as in developed countries.