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Concept
Rainfed agriculture
Summary
Rainfed agriculture is a type of farming that relies on rainfall for water. It provides much of the food consumed by poor communities in developing countries. E.g., rainfed agriculture accounts for more than 95% of farmed land in sub-Saharan Africa, 90% in Latin America, 75% in the Near East and North Africa, 65% in East Asia, and 60% in South Asia.
There is a strong correlation between poverty, hunger and water scarcity in part because of the dependencies on rainfed agriculture in developing economies. Moreover, because of increased weather variability, climate change is expected to make rain-fed farmers more vulnerable to climate change.
Rainfed agriculture is distinguished in most of the literature from irrigated agriculture, which applies water from other sources, such as freshwater from streams, rivers and lakes or groundwater. As farmers become more aware of and develop better water resource management strategies, most agriculture exists on a spectrum between rainfed and irrigated agriculture.
There is a correlation between poverty, hunger, and water scarcity. The UN Millennium Development Project has identified the ‘hot spot’ countries in the world suffering from the largest prevalence of malnutrition. These countries coincide closely with those located in the semi-arid and dry sub-humid hydroclimates in the world (i.e., savanna and steppe ecosystems), where rainfed agriculture is the dominant source of food and where water constitutes a key limiting factor to crop growth. Of the 850 million undernourished people in the world, essentially all live in poor, developing countries, which predominantly are located in tropical regions.
Levels of productivity, particularly in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, are low due to degraded soils, high levels of evaporation, droughts, floods and a general lack of effective water management. A major study into water use by agriculture, known as the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, coordinated by the International Water Management Institute, noted a close correlation between hunger, poverty, and water.
Official source
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