Reviewing the Impact of the Interventions to Reduce Water Scarcity in Farming Practices

Abstract

Water scarcity is constraining socio-economic development and threating livelihoods the worldover. Increasing water scarcity exerts pressure on agricultural production given current and growing food demands. Without water, farm production decreases and food security is negatively impacted. Hence, this paper reviews an array of literature focusing on interventions implimented to reduce effects of the scarcity of water among crop farmers. Publications and reports between 1999 and 2021 were reviewed to isolate and establish trends of water scarcity challenges and interventions. Key terms such as agriculture, water scarcity, crop farming, climate change and water conservation were used to identify appropriate material. 210 articles were identified from search engines like EBSCOhost, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Emerald, African journals online and Sabinet. Only 109 articles were relevant to the review paper questions which included identifying the causes of water scarcity and interventions used by farmers. It was discovered that most of the interventions utilised were survivalist in nature as they did not translate to increased productivity. Hence, the need for transformative interventions to water security was apparent. If no external assistance, farmers may not continue producing sufficient food to meet the demand of the ever increasing human population. This could jeopardise the achievement of sustainable development goals such as zero hunger by 2030 and reduced poverty.