Prospects for Irrigated Agriculture : Whether Irrigated Area and Irrigation Water Must Increase to Meet Food Needs in the Future

This report derives from the importance
of water for irrigation to the question, how will additional
food be produced as competition for scarce land and water
resources increases? The International Water Management
Institute (IWMI), Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO), and International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) provide a partial picture of supply and
demand for food supply and irrigation-water by 2025 and
2030. The World Bank initiated a validation exercise in
cooperation with these agencies to ensure that the models:
consider a balanced range of assumptions and scenarios;
introduce additional assumptions and scenarios; and
replace, or fine-tune, some of them. It attempts to
introduce into the forecasts the possible impacts of
additional policy interventions and to evaluate their likely
effects on the global projections of agriculture-water
supply and demand. The validation exercise provides a review
of the existing model structure and components, the
assumptions made, the scenarios, and scenario results.
Model assumptions, scenarios, and results of the revised
response from the IWMI, FAO, and IFPRI are given as a part
of the validation exercise as well as assumptions made and
scenarios developed under different criteria and issues as
raised by the group of experts.