Water and Cereals in Drylands

Cereals are by far the most important source of food throughout the world, either directly for human consumption or indirectly in the form of animal feed for livestock products consumed as food. With world population set to rise to nine billion by 2050, there is an urgent need to examine ways to increase cereal production. Indeed recently the future of cereal production and consumption has been complicated by rising energy prices and the economics of biofuels, which are competing for the use of cereals. One way to increase cereal production is by the more effective use of marginal dryland areas, many of which are particularly vulnerable to water shortages due to increased demand for water and to climate change. This book reviews the potential for increased cereal production in drylands across the world, from the USA, Australia and Southern Europe to Asia and Africa. It describes how improved water conservation, water harvesting and investment options can contribute to this, and suggests policies for the more efficient use of existing natural resources in order to lessen the dependence of agriculture on further irrigation development.

B. A. Stewart is Director of the Dryland Agriculture Institute at West Texas AM University, USA. P. Koohafkan is Director of the Natural Resources Management and Environment Department at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, based on Rome, Italy.