Water and Food in Africa

Africa’s groundwater potential, from MacDonald et al. (2012) As discussed last week, some of the most proliferating farmer-led irrigation techniques involve groundwater as a source for water abstraction, therefore I wanted to investigate Africa’s groundwater potential in this week’s post. MacDonald et al. (2012) estimate that much of Africa is sitting on top of a goldmine – a goldmine consisting of around 0.66 million km3 of water.  To put this into perspective: - Average annual in Africa is estimated to be 0.02 million km3, - Total lake water storage is estimated to be 0.03 million km3, - Total renewable freshwater resources are estimated to be 0.004 million km3, Thus, the estimated volume of Africa’s groundwater is more than 12 times a great as its annual rainfall, lake water storage and renewable freshwater resources combined.  In addition to this, Damkjaer and Taylor (2017) explain that common water scarcity metrics, such as the water stress index (WSI), withdrawal...

Woodhouse et al. (2017) defined farmer-led irrigation development as “a process where farmers assume a driving role in improving their water use for agriculture by bringing about changes in knowledge production, technology use, investment patterns and market linkages, and the governance of land and water.”  Such schemes are known to occur informally – and en masse – throughout sub-Saharan Africa, many of which not contributing to Africa’s official percentage of irrigated agriculture (6%) – this post will cover a few examples. Furrow Irrigation, from Averbeke et al. (2011) Furrow Irrigation One example of farmer-led irrigation occurs in East and Southern Africa, where water is diverted from permanent mountain streams and springs, through large systems of interlinked hand-dug furrows, allowing for irrigation.  In South Africa, as Smit and Jacobs (2004) explain, native South Africans could only access irrigation through the use of hand-dug furrows, as opposed to the ‘modernised...

    According to McKinsey & Co ., the agricultural industry in ‘sub-Saharan Africa’ accounts for 23% of its GDP and employs 60% of its population.  You et al. (2010) explain that unlike other regions in the world, 94% of food production in Africa depends on rainfed agriculture, leaving the region especially vulnerable to drought induced famine.  Touma et al. (2015) found that the climate change will increase the occurrence, duration and extent of drought in subtropical and tropical regions.  Therefore, as the majority of the African continent is located within the subtropics and tropics, the majority of the continent is at increased risk of drought and famine as a result of climate change.  This has created a push for a ‘New Green Revolution’ in Africa from many non-governmental developmental organisations, such as the World Bank.   Irrigation is an agricultural practice that involves the artificial application of water onto cultivated land, thus ...