Agriculture and water
Agriculture and water
Growing food and fibre is the greatest source of livelihoods for the world's poor, and plays a key role in rural development.
However, agriculture also has the biggest impact on the environment of any human activity. Key consequences include the pollution of water, soil and air; land and habitat conversion; soil degradation; and the huge demand for water.
For example, agriculture draws 70% of the water we use in the world – and in some countries the figure is more than 90%. This contributes to the massive degradation that has taken place in the world's freshwater ecosystems, documented in WWF's Living Planet Report. Increasing food and fibre demands among the world's growing population will hugely increase this problem in future years.
What WWF is doing
WWF works to reduce the volume of water that agriculture uses and to improve the impact agriculture has on fresh water. A greater flow of water in a river not only benefits users downstream from agriculture, but also helps to ensure rivers can carry sediments to maintain deltas, better dilutes pollutants in the water, and maintains cooler and more oxygenated water which is more suitable for fish.
Sugar, cotton and rice are major users of the world's water resources. WWF is working to increase the efficiency of water use and to improve the other environmental and social impacts of these crops.
Building partnerships to help growers. WWF is engaging with progressive 'agri-businesses' - investors, grower groups, other charities and transnational organisations that are committed to helping farmers improve what they do, so that they make money but have less impact on nature.
With the help of the EU, the UK government’s Department for International Development and progressive companies like Marks & Spencer, WWF is engaging with the growers, brand owners and global distributors of cotton and sugar. We are working not only to improve their environmental and water use practices, but also to help them improve their social and financial performance. Using water less wastefully means that more is available for all – people and nature.
WWF-UK is helping to fund international initiatives to improve the key social and environmental impacts of sugarcane and cotton production.
We support projects managed by WWF offices in Pakistan and India that demonstrate how to improve water use in sugarcane, cotton and rice production.
We are also helping to advise companies such as Unilever and Marks & Spencer on how to improve their indirect environmental impacts when they obtain raw materials from agriculture to make the food they sell to us.
And we advise international initiatives, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the Natural Value Initiative, that help investors to understand and compare the water use and other environmental performance of different food and beverage companies.