The main message of my presentation was on the coming stagnation of areas equipped for irrigation following the rapid expansion through over tapping groundwater during the last 2- 3 decades. To meet the demand for food by 2030 or 2050, performance of irrigation systems would have to improve over the present performance which is far below the level expected at feasibility level for both new and rehabilitation projects.
After that alerting introduction the presentation continued on the improvements of the physical infrastructure, as this was a subject of interest to the audience from UK ICID. However the speaker did not ignore the importance of social and policy reforms . One of the concluding slides was it is only the combinaison of physical improvements and institutional and policy reforms that the project objectives can be achieved. Many donor-supported projects have addressed only one side of the problem - and in most cases the software side only.
The main message of my presentation was on the coming stagnation of areas equipped for irrigation following the rapid expansion through over tapping groundwater during the last 2- 3 decades. To meet the demand for food by 2030 or 2050, performance of irrigation systems would have to improve over the present performance which is far below the level expected at feasibility level for both new and rehabilitation projects.
After that alerting introduction the presentation continued on the improvements of the physical infrastructure, as this was a subject of interest to the audience from UK ICID. However the speaker did not ignore the importance of social and policy reforms . One of the concluding slides was it is only the combinaison of physical improvements and institutional and policy reforms that the project objectives can be achieved. Many donor-supported projects have addressed only one side of the problem - and in most cases the software side only.