This Note outlines a larger report describing the changing context of demand and supply for agricultural water. It identifies the policy, institutional, and incentive reform options that will accelerate improvements in productivity and pro-poor growth in this sector. It articulates priorities...

Reliable supplies of water for agriculture have helped meet rapidly rising demand for food in developing countries, making farms more profitable, reducing poverty, and helping vast regions of the world develop more dynamic and diversified economies. Can these successes be sustained with demand...

Agricultural water has been seen as a prime mechanism for fostering rural economic growth and reducing rural poverty. But agricultural water has encountered problems of performance, profitability and sustainability. This resulted in a reduction in investments from governments and lending from...

Smallholder irrigated horticulture has proven to be a viable and attractive option for poor farmers in developing countries. This paper relates two important lessons learned: low-cost productive technologies must be available to smallholders in terms of both location and price and must...

Improved water management practices and trade in "virtual water" can help alleviate water scarcity, release water for more efficient uses, increase productivity, and ultimately reduce food prices for consumers. Investments in these areas can therefore drive growth and poverty reduction, both...

Conjunctive water use refers to simultaneous use of surface water and groundwater to meet crop demand. This Note concludes that to optimize conjunctive use of water, the best way forward is to concentrate on capacity building of irrigation system managers to improve system management and reshape...

Irrigation has been vital to agricultural gains in the last half century. But demand for food continues to rise as the world's population increases and economic progress allows more people to eat better. Demand for irrigation grows apace with the demand for food. But in recent years the pace of...

This guide addresses the variety of infrastructural investments that are likely to provide the highest value for improving the performance of Irrigation &Drainage (I&D) as part of the efforts to innovate and modernize. Boosting the performance of I&D schemes requires attention to both on- and...

In this paper, we estimate the allocative inefficiency of groundwater in Pakistani agriculture and compare it across a set of farm-level constraints, using a panel dataset of rural households. The farm-level constraints include tenure, farm size, access to surface water and location on a...