Research units
Water Resource Management, Actors and UsesContact
Jean-Yves Jamin
Montpellier, France
E-mail
Quels nouveaux défis pour les agricultures irriguées ?
23/05/2011 - Article
A special issue of Cahiers Agricultures on the new issues surrounding irrigation, the questions and problems they raise and the main changes under way.
Irrigation concerns 18% of cultivated land and provides more than 40% of the world's food. While the productivity per hectare of irrigated agriculture is higher and more consistent than that of rainfed agriculture, irrigation entails more constraints in many respects: high investment, operating and maintenance costs, intensive cropping systems that are highly dependent on supply chains both upstream (agro supplies) and downstream (distribution), often compulsory collective management, and water sharing to be negotiated with other users.
This special issue provides a non-exhaustive picture of the new issues surrounding irrigation, the questions and problems they raise and the main changes under way. Three main issues are addressed, based on studies of local farming situations in Europe, Asia, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa:
i) technical innovation and improvements to the performance of irrigated agriculture,
ii) new forms of water and land management within collective schemes,
and iii) tension surrounding irrigation within territories.
Quels nouveaux défis pour les agricultures irriguées ?
Special issue of Cahiers Agricultures
Editorial coordination: Jean-Yves Jamin, Sami Bouarfa, Jean-Christophe Poussin
Volume 20, issue 1-2, January-April 2011
May 2011
- Category: Just out