USAID report highlights need for better water management in agriculture

"With its recently released Water and Development Strategy, USAID highlights some practical and potentially powerful initiatives both to improve health by expanding access to clean water and sanitation and to improve food security through better water management in agriculture," Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy and director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in the council's "Democracy in Development" blog. She describes two areas for action singled out in the report -- making rainfed agriculture work better and making irrigation more effective -- and continues, "According to USAID, rainfed agriculture is responsible for over 60 percent of food produced globally. Thus, the focus on improving the productivity of rainfed agriculture is sensible -- indeed, working to improve preexisting systems and business processes should be seen more in international development efforts" (4/25).