Evaluation of agricultural practices to improve water use and water use efficiency in Mediterranean arid and semi-arid production systems. MEDRATE project
Cantero-Martinez C. ()
Dept. Producción Vegetal y Ciencia Forestal University of Lleida, Rovira Roure, Lleida, Spain
Rainfed agriculture has been practiced over large arable crop area in the Mediterranean basin. In these areas soils and water availability to crops and animals is the main limiting constraint. Soil conservation and efficient use of water is vital to the stable and sustainable agricultural production. Both arable and livestock production that is developed surrounded Mediterranean Sea has been and will continue to be the main base of economic activity in these areas. The maintenance and efficiency of the farming practices, based in soil and water conservation in these areas is therefore a basic condition for the sustainability of the rural population and to mitigate their migration to urban areas. Sustainable developments of agricultural technologies have to be also considering avoiding the environmental degradation of this fragile agroecosystems. Under the industrial agriculture point of view, research in these areas is scarce sometimes because low economical importance. Farmers in these marginal areas have less access to education, training and technology transfer of new agricultural techniques. That makes even more marginal the development of these areas. To get much more efficient access and development of these technologies by farmers, linking research, advising and the previous knowledge of the users is necessary. Some research in these areas has been conducted by international institutions funded by different programs and projects. Some other research and technology transfer has been responsibility of the own countries. MEDRATE Project aimed the assessment of the impact and adoption of agricultural technologies specially adapted to rainfed agriculture. The evaluation has been carried at three levels: 1. Research, 2. On-farm trials / demonstration and 3. At farm level, using quantitative and qualitative data. MEDRATE Project was part of the activities within the Regional Action Programme “Rainfed agriculture” RAP-RAG of the Cooperation Project, 1998-2002 EC (DG.I) – CIHEAM. The following countries have participated: Algeria, Egypt, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. This project was carried out until February 2003. In this presentation is being to be shown results of evaluation of soil and water management and crop production technologies regarding the improvement in water use and water use efficiency by crops. The presentation will include results from the analysis of the assessment of the technologies referred to Reduced Tillage, Water harvesting, Supplementary Irrigation, N Fertilization management, Planting techniques and Weed Control at research and at farms adoption levels. Quantitative evaluation will show yield gains and improvement in water use and WUE. In conclusion, research data demonstrated the promising potential of some of this technology to improve WU and WUE. More efforts have to be developed in order to obtain data in particular situations. Testing general crop and cropping system models could also be useful to develop strategies for these areas. Clearly, improvement of the technology transfer and access to the economical threshold for implementation of these techniques are the keystone for develop the level of adoption by farmers. For further information of the Regional Action Programme “Rainfed agriculture” RAP-RAG and MEDRATE project see Final Seminar was held in 2-3 June 2003 in Zaragoza (Spain) that included all the results and conclusion of the different aspects of the Project. Information of this Seminar can be obtained in and in “Cantero-Martínez C.; Gabiña D. (eds.). 2004. Mediterranean rainfed agriculture: Strategies for sustainability. Options Méditerranéennes. Vol 60.”. CIHEAM-IAMZ.