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Announcements
1. Regional workshop on rehabilitation of agriculture in
tsunami affected area, 29-30 June 2006
2. Radio des Nations Unies: L' Approche
Champ-École
3. Extension of
E-conference on impact of irrigation and agricultural
intensification on water quality
Reports and publications
4. World reference base for soil resources 2006
5. Water desalination for
agricultural applications
6. Manual Participatory Rapid Diagnosis and Action
Planning for Irrigated Agriculture Systems (PRDA)
7. Cities Versus Agriculture: Revisiting
Intersectoral Water Transfers, Potential Gains and
Conflicts
On-line resources
8. IES: Irrigation Equipment Supply Database
ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Regional workshop on
rehabilitation of agriculture in tsunami affected area: One year and
half later, 29-30 June 2006
Three months after the devastating tsunami, a Regional Workshop
on salt-affected soils from sea water intrusion was organized by the
FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, to share information
and develop mechanisms for collaboration and joint activities.
Several projects were initiated to assess the damages to
agricultural lands and to plan appropriate interventions which
included activities such as rehabilitation of damaged agricultural
lands and infrastructures, reclamation of salt-affected soils for
resumption of crop production. Moreover, FAO supported agriculture
workshops at country level, in Indonesia and Sri Lanka to address
country-specific issues. One of the main challenges now is to
identify suitable interventions for longer term rehabilitation and
reconstruction of the agriculture sector in a sustainable manner
best suited to the local agro-ecological and socio-economic
conditions. For this purpose, the FAO Regional Office for Asia and
the Pacific is convening a second regional workshop to bring
together relevant national and international institutions and
organizations to examine the present status of rehabilitation
activities in the agriculture sector as well as to identify future
interventions for sustainable development of the affected
agriculture sector. The workshop will be held 29 – 30 June 2006, at
the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand.
Contacts: Yuji Niino , Gamini Keerthisinghe,
Christophe
Charbon.
2. Radio des Nations Unies:
L' Approche Champ-École
Promouvoir l’approche « champ-école » pour les
paysans
01 juin– L'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et
l’agriculture développe l’approche Champ-École pour faire participer
les paysans à prendre des décisions. Cette approche part du constat
et de la nécessité que les paysans doivent s’associer et comprendre
ce qu’ils font et choisir la méthode ou les solutions. En Indonésie,
plus de 120 000 producteurs ont étés formés, et la méthode s’étend
désormais au continent africain. Pour plus d'information: Radio des
Nations Unies. Contact: Liliane Kambirigi et Walter
BurgosLeon.
Togo : Des champs-écoles pour réduire la
faim
07 juin– L’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et
l'agriculture (FAO) propose des « classes vertes » aux paysans
togolais à travers l’initiative des « champs-école » des
agriculteurs. Ceux-ci se réalisent dans le cadre du Programme
spécial pour la sécurité alimentaire (PSSA) qui vise de réduire de
moitié le nombre de personnes souffrant de la faim dans le monde
d'ici 2015. La FAO utilise cette stratégie parmi tant d’autres pour
mettre en pratique des techniques d'irrigation simples et gérables,
et de gestion intégrée de la fertilité des sols. Pour plus
d'information: Radio
des Nations Unies. Contact: Liliane Kambirigi et Walter
BurgosLeon.
3. Extension of E-conference
on impact of irrigation and agricultural intensification on water
quality
IPTRID is pleased to announce the extension of the on-going
electronic conference on the impact of irrigation and agricultural
intensification on water quality until the 10th of July. Already
more than 150 participants joined this event, and you can still register.
This conference aims to promote sustainable irrigated agriculture
through knowledge and experience sharing. The conference is
organized within the framework of the CISEAU project whose
information platform depicts the interactions between irrigation,
agricultural intensification, and water resource quality. The
official languages are English and French. If you face problems in
registering, please send an email to ciseau@fao.org.
REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS
4. World reference base for
soil resources 2006 - A framework for international classification,
correlation and communication
This publication is a revised and updated version of World Soil
Resources Reports No. 84, a technical manual for soil scientists and
correlators, designed to facilitate the exchange of information and
experience related to soil resources, their use and management. The
document provides a framework for international soil classification
and an agreed common scientific language to enhance communication
across disciplines using soil information. It contains definitions
and diagnostic criteria to recognize soil horizons, properties and
materials and gives rules and guidelines for classifying and
subdividing soil reference groups. Click here for
on-line reading and/or downloading or visit the AGL On-line
Publications Database. Contact: Freddy
Nachtergaele.
5. FAO Land and Water
Discussion Paper # 5 - Water desalination for agricultural
applications
With worldwide concerns about water scarcity, agriculture is
under pressure to improve water management and explore available
options to match supply and demand. Desalination is a technical
option to increase the availability of freshwater both in coastal
areas with limited resources and in areas where brackish waters are
available. Water desalination is the main source of potable water in
some countries and in many islands around the world and it is also
being used in certain countries to irrigate high-value crops.
However, it has proven much less economic for agricultural
application than the reuse of treated wastewater, even where the
capital costs of the desalination plants are subsidized. FAO
organized an expert consultation entitled Water desalination for
agricultural applications (Rome, 26–27 April 2004) to analyse the
state of the art and examine long-term prospects, with a special
focus on the economic feasibility of applying desalinated water in
agriculture, specifically for irrigation, in comparison with the
reuse of treated wastewater. This publication contains a technical
summary of the expert consultation as well as the keynote papers
that were presented. Click here for
on-line reading and/or downloading or visit the AGL On-line
Publications Database. Contact: Sasha Koo-Oshima and Julian Martínez
Beltrán.
6. Manual Participatory Rapid
Diagnosis and Action Planning for Irrigated Agriculture Systems
(PRDA)
This manual has been developed within the framework of the
project "Amélioration des Performances des Périmètres Irrigués"
(Improving Irrigation Performance in Africa) funded by the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE). This project, implemented in East
Africa by IWMI and in West Africa by ARID, has produced and
disseminated a considerable amount of analyses and information in
seven countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal,
Ethiopia and Kenya) that should be made available to all irrigation
stakeholders. IWMI, with the collaboration of IPTRID is publishing,
for the benefit of technicians of public services, NGOs and farmer
organizations, this manual which offers a participatory and
practical methodology based on practical experiences and thinking of
many farmers and irrigation professionals in Ethiopia and Kenya. An
electronic
version of the report is available online.
7. Comprehensive Assessment
Research Report 10, 2006: Cities Versus Agriculture: Revisiting
Intersectoral Water Transfers, Potential Gains and Conflicts
Water demand management, or making better use of the water we
have—as opposed to augmenting supply—is increasingly proposed as a
way of mitigating water-scarcity problems. Moving water away from
agriculture to uses with higher economic value is one of the main
measures widely seen as desirable. Sectoral “allocation stress” is
often identified as resulting from four different observations: a)
agriculture gets the “lion’s share” of all diverted water resources;
b) agriculture is not only the main water user but also an activity
that incurs by far the largest wastage; c) cities are “thirsty” ;
and d) water productivity in nonagricultural sectors is far higher
than in agriculture. This apparent misallocation is often attributed
to the failure of the government to allocate water rationally. This
report revisits this commonly-accepted wisdom and examines the
nature of urban water scarcity, the relative importance of both
physical and economic scarcity, and how cities secure funds for the
development of their water infrastructure (or fail to do so). An electronic
version of the report is available online. Contact: François Molle, IRD,
Montpellier.
ON-LINE RESOURCES
8. Irrigation Equipment
Supply Database
The Water Resources, Development and Management Service of FAO
and the International Programme for Technology and Research in
Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) have recently joined forces for the
upgrading of the Irrigation Equipment
Supply (IES) database. This tool, developed as part of FAO's
mandate to provide information on irrigation, seeks to establish an
up-to-date list of Suppliers and Manufacturers providing specific
irrigation equipment worldwide. The database offers several query
facilities: besides identifying and contacting Suppliers and
Manufactures at regional and country level, users can gather
information on irrigation equipment and on irrigation standards and
can find links to other relevant sites. For any enquiries, please
contact the IES
Administrator.
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