Rainfed agriculture is a type offarming that relies onrainfall for water. It provides much of the food consumed by poor communities indeveloping countries. E.g., rainfed agriculture accounts for more than 95% of farmed land insub-Saharan Africa, 90% inLatin America, 75% in theNear East and North Africa, 65% inEast Asia, and 60% inSouth Asia.[1]
There is a strong correlation between poverty, hunger andwater scarcity in part because of the dependencies on rainfed agriculture in developing economies. Moreover, because ofincreased weather variability, climate change is expected to makerain-fed farmers more vulnerable to climate change.[2]
Rainfed agriculture is distinguished in most of the literature fromirrigated agriculture, which applies water from other sources, such asfreshwater from streams, rivers and lakes orgroundwater. As farmers become more aware of and develop betterwater resource management strategies, most agriculture exists on a spectrum between rainfed and irrigated agriculture.[3]
There is a correlation betweenpoverty, hunger, andwater scarcity.[4] TheUN Millennium Development Project has identified the ‘hot spot’ countries in the world suffering from the largest prevalence ofmalnutrition. These countries coincide closely with those located in the semi-arid and dry sub-humidhydroclimates in the world (i.e.,savanna andsteppe ecosystems), where rainfed agriculture is the dominant source of food and where water constitutes a key limiting factor to crop growth.[5] Of the 850 million undernourished people in the world, essentially all live in poor, developing countries, which predominantly are located in tropical regions.[6]
Levels of productivity, particularly in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, are low due todegraded soils, high levels ofevaporation,droughts,floods and a general lack of effectivewater management. A major study into water use by agriculture, known as theComprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, coordinated by theInternational Water Management Institute, noted a close correlation betweenhunger,poverty, andwater. However, it concluded that there was much opportunity to raise the productivity of rainfed farming. Managing rainwater andsoil moisture more effectively and using supplemental and small-scaleirrigation is believed to hold the key to helping the greatest number of poor people. It called for a new era of water investments and policies for upgrading rainfed agriculture that would go beyond controlling field-level soil and water to bring new freshwater sources through better local management of rainfall andrunoff.[7]
The importance of rainfed agriculture varies regionally, but it produces most food for poor communities in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 95% of the farmed land is rainfed, while the corresponding figure for Latin America is almost 90%, for South Asia about 60%, for East Asia 65%, and for the Near East and North Africa 75%.[8] Most countries in the world depend primarily on rainfed agriculture for their grain food. Despite large strides made in improving productivity and environmental conditions in many developing countries, a great number of poor families in Africa and Asia still face poverty, hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition where rainfed agriculture is the main agricultural activity. These problems are exacerbated by adverse biophysical growing conditions and the poor socioeconomic infrastructure in many areas in thesemi-arid tropics (SAT). The SAT is the home to 38% of the developing countries’ poor, 75% of whom live in rural areas. Over 45% of the world's hungry and more than 70% of its malnourished children live in the SAT.[9]
Since the late 1960s, agricultural land use has expanded by 20–25%, which has contributed to approximately 30% of the overall grain production growth during the period.[10][11] The remaining yield outputs originated from intensification through yield increases per unit land area. However, the regional variation is large, as is the difference betweenirrigated and rainfed agriculture. Indeveloping countries, rainfed grain yields are on average 1.5hectare, compared with 3.1 hectare for irrigated yields,[12] and increase in production from rainfed agriculture has mainly originated from land expansion.[citation needed]
