The Challenge
Sustaining resilient food production requires careful management of multiple resources, including healthy soils, fertilizers, and water for irrigation. Inefficient use of these resources depletes water supplies, pollutes surface waters, and over the long term increases costs for producers –and ultimately for consumers, too. Clean water and healthy soils are key to maintaining good economic as well as environmental conditions for all residents of agricultural communities and their downstream neighbors. Drought, extreme rainfall events, and climate change all pose formidable challenges in this context. Therefore, prudent resource management is necessary to balance these various needs and ensure a steady supply of food while sustaining livelihoods and quality of life.
