The draft document understandably highlights that water scarcity and water stress, exacerbated by climate change, are one of the challenges of the twenty-first century, especially for the agriculture and food systems
By Salam Rajesh
Rome in Italy hosted a fairly interesting deliberation last week on the future of agriculture systems owing to the projected short and long-term impacts of climate change. Ministers, Heads of Delegation, and partners of the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG) gathered in the ancient Roman city on 17 October to knock heads together on the occasion of the High-Level Rome Water Dialogue on WASAG.
The outcome of the brainstorming global exercise was the draft of a particularly significant document, “Rome Declaration on Water Scarcity in Agriculture”. The document seeks tangible solutions to address the pressing issue of the perceived negative impacts on the agriculture system largely owing to changing climatic conditions globally.
The world today is fairly in the grip of serious dialogues on steadily rising global-scale temperature, including ocean surface temperature, due to human-induced climate change factors, while extreme weather events are hitting people, properties, nature and the wildlife left and right without respite.
The current deliberation on climate change impacts looks at the agriculture system primarily, terming this sector as highly reactive to the changing weather and climatic processes, more specifically changing rainfall patterns, extended droughts, unprecedented floods, mudslides, cloudbursts, and many other ‘unnatural’ processes that could induce crop loss, proliferation of invasive species that would dominate over the native crops, decline and extinction of species, and so forth.
The draft document understandably highlights that water scarcity and water stress, exacerbated by climate change, are one of the challenges of the twenty-first century, especially for the agriculture and food systems.
In between this relative concern is the worry that droughts, particularly extensive droughts such as in the Sub-Saharan regions, are contributing to crop failures in parts of the world and an acute food insecurity crisis in vulnerable countries. Western and central India recently faced unprecedented droughts, threatening intensive crop failures.
The Rome declaration document further analyzed that changing rainfall patterns, including resulting droughts, floods, increasing water pollution and deteriorating water quality, and a warming climate put at risk the food security, water security, and the livelihoods of farmers and people worldwide.
Anticipating the immediate future world population to reach a massive figure of around 10 billion by the year 2050, the Rome document deliberated that to satisfy the increasing demands of the bulging global population, more water and improved water efficiency will be required to build inclusive, resilient, climate-smart and sustainable agri-food systems.
Integrating water resources management as core in addressing quality and quantity aspects of sustainable water management, the deliberation focused on the importance of ‘maintaining and restoring healthy ecosystems and natural resources for the multiple goods and services that they provide to support livelihoods and water security’.
Stressing that sectors other than agriculture, too, are equally affected by water scarcity and climate change and competing for more water in the future, the draft document laid emphasis on regenerating forests ecosystems as vital element of the water cycle and, thereto, contribute to better quality, quantity, and timing of water provision, while reducing water-related risks, such as flooding, soil erosion, and drought.
In 2018, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations’ Committee on Agriculture (COAG) supported WASAG as a key coordination mechanism to adapt water scarcity in agriculture due to climate change both at the national and global levels, in a sustainable and inclusive manner.
In 2021, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) acknowledged WASAG as one of the examples of initiatives disseminating its policy recommendations, and in the following year COAG had recommended that FAO in close collaboration with relevant UN agencies to initiate a “Global Dialogue on Water Tenure”, while in 2023, CFS requested FAO to establish guiding principles for the responsible governance of water tenure.
The draft document reminds that WASAG was recognized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Accelerator, and has been included as one of FAO’s eight commitments to the Global Water Action Agenda at the UN Water Conference in New York during March last year.
The relative importance of a science-policy interface and the opportunity offered by WASAG to connect technical experts and policymakers for a greater impact at all levels was duly stressed, focused at FAO to set up an Inter-regional Technical Platform on Water Scarcity, mobilized resources and implemented regional water scarcity initiatives such as the Water Scarcity Programme for Asia and the Pacific region, and the Water Scarcity Initiative for the Near East and North Africa region.
It further stressed on FAO’s Value-Added Impact Area (VAIA) initiative on Addressing Water Scarcity in Agriculture and the environment (AWSAMe) which is in support of FAO’s Strategic Framework 2022-2031, promoting indigenous, drought-resilient and nutritious crops, as well as saline agriculture, efficient water-saving agriculture and the application of water-saving irrigation technology to cope with the ever increasing water scarcity across the globe.
It sought member nations towards committing to the mobilization of greater political support for an enabling environment (policies, legal and institutional frameworks, access to financing) and responsible water governance to address the effects of water scarcity and climate change, including both floods and droughts, on global food security, and to create sustainable, resilient and inclusive agri-food systems, with a specific focus on positioning agriculture at the core of international climate change discussions.
Quite interestingly, the draft document laid particular emphasis on the need to ensure the effective participation of youth, women, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in the WASAG initiative.
The Rome declaration sought more support from member countries for greater collaboration at global, regional and national levels, including through ongoing mechanisms such as the Regional Water Scarcity Programs, the Inter-Regional Technical Platform on Water Scarcity (iRTP-WS), and other initiatives by partners to better support vulnerable countries, in particular under-developed and developing nations as in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia.
It may be recalled that in response to the above challenges, the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG), a partnership hosted by FAO, was officially launched during the Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in November 2016 at Marrakech in Morocco, and subsequently endorsed by 83 ministers in charge of agriculture in January 2017 during the ninth Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Conference at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA).