The agricultural community has a challenge of increasing food production by more than 70% to meet demand from the global population increase by the mid-21st century. Sustainable food production involves the sustained availability of resources, such as water and energy, to agriculture. The key challenges to sustainable food production are population increase, increasing demands for food, climate change, and climate variability, decreasing per capita land and water resources. To discuss more details on (a) the challenges for sustainable food production and (b) mitigation options available, a special issue on “Water Management for Sustainable Food Production” was assembled. The special issue focused on issues such as irrigation using brackish water, virtual water trade, allocation of water resources, consequences of excess precipitation on crop yields, strategies to increase water productivity, rainwater harvesting, irrigation water management, deficit irrigation, and fertilization, environmental and socio-economic impacts, and irrigation water quality. Articles covered several water-related issues across the U.S., Asia, Middle-East, Africa, and Pakistan for sustainable food production. The articles in the special issue highlight the substantial impacts on agricultural production, water availability, and water quality in the face of increasing demands for food and energy.

Water is an essential recurring input for agriculture productivity and key to food security. Its availability in space and time has been a matter of great concern in many parts of the world. In India there is growing awareness about the scarcity of water under the increased water demand from agriculture and other sectors. Further, the projected reduction in water availability to the agriculture sector from the share of 89

The symposium (2014) focused on the challenges of crop production faced by farmers in the Sahel region. The presentation covers a three-year fertilizer micro dosing (MD) project that was combined with rainwater harvesting (RWH). The techniques are assessed in terms of effects on crop production and family income. It also explores the “warrantage” or inventory credit system where harvested crops are stored and used as collateral to access loans and credit. With improving crop varieties, MD and RWH can increase yields up to 200%. There is no evidence that the process caused land degradation or yield decline, suggesting long term sustainability.

Paper for presentation at the 27th SSEA/6th ASSS Conference held on October 20-25, 2013 in Nakuru, Kenya | To evaluate the performance of drought tolerant maize varieties under different water harvesting technologies (zai pits, tied ridges and conventional), the treatments were laid out in a split plot design with water harvesting methods as the main plots, and maize varieties as the sub-plots. Four maize varieties were evaluated under the three water harvesting technologies. Maize yields in zai pits and tied ridges treatments were significantly higher than for conventional treatment. Maize constitutes a major component of the diet in the region, with more than 70% of maize cultivated by farmers in small holder units of less than 20 hectares of land.