Farmers Are Turning to New Tech to Manage Water

Farmers Look to Both Tech and Tradition for Ways to Grow More Food with Less of an Increasingly Strained Resource

Farmers are turning to new and old technology in an attempt to manage their water.

Measure twice, pump once

The old business dogma, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it", holds especially true with water usage. But in many places around the world the amount of water diverted from rivers or pumped from the ground to irrigate crops is not measured. Even California groundwater was totally unregulateduntil this month.

That's a political rather than a technological problem, said Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, an independent research organization focused on water issues. Flow meters to measure water use are neither new nor expensive, Gleick said. But in many places groundwater has long been considered a property right, so farmers have seen no need measure or justify how they use it.

But with drought and over-pumping dropping water tables, some are beginning to recognize that better water use tracking will help to keep a dwindling resource flowing.

Waste not, want not

The first place to save water is in conveyance: as much as60%of the water withdrawn for irrigation is lostthrough leaks in canals, spillage and evaporation, according to the FAO.

Another part of the problem is flood irrigation - the most common method of field irrigation globally. Abouthalf the wateron flood irrigated fields isn't absorbed by crops, according to the US Geological Survey. Instead it runs off, taking with it fertilizers, pesticides and topsoil that pollute water bodies around the world and cause dead zones, areas where too much fertilizer causes algae to bloom, which in turn sucks oxygen out of the water, killing other life.

Flood irrigation is commonplace because it's cheap. But in response to strained water supplies, some farmers have made the shift to much more efficient underground irrigation or precision micro-sprinkler and drip irrigation systems that deposit tiny amounts of water directly above the roots of crops. These systems also help farmers earn more money by allowing them to plan more acreage while using less water than before.

The up-front cost of a drip system is significant - about $500 to $1000 per acre, according to the FAO. Even though these investmentspay for themselves within a few yearsthanks to better water-use efficiency and lower irrigation-related energy bills, many farmers don't have the cash - or credit access - to install them.

However a Middle Eastern firm has developed a new low-tech solution that also places water right at the roots of crops and can work with or without drip irrigation - and comes with a much smaller price tag.

In Israel, where water scarcity has been a way of life for decades,Tal-Ya("God's dew" in Hebrew) manufactures trays that capture dew and funnel it to plants, often tree crops. The 28- by 22-inch polypropylene trays trap air underneath themselves as well, insulating plants from extreme temperatures and catching moisture evaporating from the earth to create a perpetually moist soil pocket around the roots. They also block weeds that would otherwise compete with crops for water.

Source: The Guardian

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