The recent ‘Every Drop Counts’ respected conference was mainly held to screen out the main challenges that Africa face in water management areas and the effective ways of using each droplet of water for agriculture. In the past 30 years, the water demand needed to sustain all Africans was not that much compulsory But due to the population expansion, urbanization, global warming and fast economic growth, the water demand becomes double. The overall quantity of water that must be there is rising very fast. In addition, the rate of food production is being limited due to the shortage of sufficient water. Also, 1.5 million people of Africa are died from Cholera and Typhoid annually because of unclean water and poor sanitation performances. The surprising thing is that Africa has enough water resources but poor management of water distribution system and planning failures result challenging progress in the real life of Africans.
In African context, Agriculture is a primary water consumer that more than half of the total economy is dependent on a single drop of water. The needs of agricultural implementation must be met in order to supply the required food production in this current population boom stage. It is believed that an agricultural sector built with water-sufficient use of strategies contribute a lot for sustainable water security of Africa. Over 90% of the continent’s water resource is available in river mode that water management decisions should be made in a mutually beneficial agreement of different countries. This is because most rivers are flowing from one country to another and the local community living near the river is dependent on the flowing water resource. Therefore, water demand agreements in trans-national step should be formulated.
Sufficient water supply for Agriculture is very crucial to set equilibrium economic balance with other sectors of production such as energy, industry and consumers. If we see the positive impact of integration and cooperation for mutual water benefits, Lake Victoria can be one of the Pioneer samples. The East African Community of water supply management set out perfect cooperative agreements among all countries that use the lake so that well management of water is clearly practiced.
Africa is relatively poor in infrastructures that enhance agricultural practices on the right water management foundation. If we consider irrigation, the development rate is slow that Asia boosts African’s system of agricultural practice and the total cultivated area under irrigation projects is 35 percent more than that of Africa. So, this is the time for Africa to move forward on the effective irrigation centered agriculture since irrigation brings a large scope of agricultural production.
A recently established water program, ACGIAR, has confirmed to bring the modern irrigation system to millions of Africans. The program’s executive manager Simon Cook told that adequate supply of water is available so as shallow water in West Africa and surface water in East Africa that by implementing irrigation centered agriculture, all water supplies can be effectively distributed.
As a part of farmer enhanced system, making the right choice of crop type allocation that delivers the needed return of available water is the goal of the plan. The habit of growing Cereals which can tolerate climate challenges should be developed for increasing productivity. ‘Every Drop Counts’ conference finally identified that water savings can be achieved mainly by modern agricultural practices, well-designed agricultural tools and irrigation practices.
