Addressing the complexities in the relation between water and food production: avoiding too simplistic views, and future prospects | Physiological and agronomic determinants of crop yield response to water

Trabajo presentado en la Final EURO-AGRIWAT Conference (Water Footprint of agricultural products: progress, challenges and solutions), celebrado en Wageningen del 7 al 9 de marzo de 2016.

Crops consume large amounts of water as determ ined largely by the en vironments in which they are grown. The introduction of the water footprint concept should have conveyed this reality to the general public; nevertheless, urba nites are often surprised by the magnitude of crop consumptive use, as exemplified by the barrage of media articles criticizing the excessive consumption of almonds in the rece nt California drought. Pressures from other sectors of society and water scarcity due to periodic droughts will force farmers to optimize the use of water in crop production. All optimization approaches must be based on knowledge on the yield response to water and, in turn, on the physiological and agro nomic factors determining such response. The ultimate goal is to be able to accurately assess the economic returns of using different amounts of irrigation water and to evaluate th e risks/rewards of seekin g/acquiring additional supplies in the event of a drought. The presentation will review the state of the art in predicting crop yield response to water using empirical and mechanistic approaches, and will analyze the role of key physiological and agronomic processes in improving the efficiency of water use in crop prod uction in the future.

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