Resource information
Access to green and blue water for agriculture is not simply addressed by opposing rainfed and irrigated
agriculture. Indeed, agricultural systems have never been strictly rainfed or irrigated. History of
Mesopotamia teaches us that even if farmers were mastering some irrigation, they were not operating
under full irrigation nor were they cultivating only using rainwater. Between irrigated and rainfed
agricultural, the farmers reality has been that they simply have never grown any crop without water,
which they have stored, mobilized and applied to plants by different ways depending on the nature of
the resource available. Irrigated farmers typically also use green water and rainfed farmers sometimes
also use blue water, even in the absence of formal irrigation systems. In a nutshell, farmers’ reality
around the world have always been to deal with a green to blue water continuum, from which they
have struggled to extract the best productive value.
