Abstract
India has the highest national freshwater demand globally and 91% of India's freshwater is used in the agriculture sector. Cereals account for over 50% of the dietary water footprint in India and represent a potential opportunity for reducing water use in Indian agriculture.This study combines governmental production and irrigation statistics with crop distribution maps to examine trends in annual water use for cereal production in India between 2005 and 2014. A new online water assessment tool, Cool Farm Tool Water (CFTW), was used to calculate water use and derive seasonal state-level blue and green water footprints for rice, wheat, sorghum, millet and maize.The analysis indicates that India achieved 26.4% increased total cereal production between 2005 and 2014 without additional water or land use. Cereal water footprints have declined due to higher yields for most crops and slightly lower rates of evapotranspiration. There has also been a shift in the area under production away from the Kharif (monsoon) towards the Rabi (dry) season in which total water footprints for all cereals except rice are substantially lower (−33.4% to −45.0% compared to Kharif), but show a significantly higher dependency on ground and surface water.The value of this study is two-fold. First, it provides a full assessment of production trends for the five major cereals in India for each year from 2005 to 2014 and links it to water use. Secondly, it uses updated seasonal water footprints, which demonstrate the potential for changes in cereal production practices to contribute to improved efficiency of water use in India. Future pressures on scarce water resources may encourage transition to cereals with lower irrigation dependency, in particular maize, but also sorghum and millet. In addition, increased emphasis on improving millet and sorghum yields would be of benefit to secure cereal production and reduce its overall water footprint.
Highlights
Feeding a growing world population with healthy diets, while minimizing the impacts on the environment, is one of the biggest challenges of the coming decades (Godfray et al, 2010; Springmann et al, 2018)
Wheat and rice production consumed the greatest amount of water (80.6% of total water use) and the highest consuming states Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan, accounted for 20.0%, 8.4% and 8.4% of total Indian water consumption for cereal production, respectively
As this has led to greater irrigation area, this strategy is of only limited use in solving water crises in India while sustaining crop production
Summary
Feeding a growing world population with healthy diets, while minimizing the impacts on the environment, is one of the biggest challenges of the coming decades (Godfray et al, 2010; Springmann et al, 2018). The population of India has risen by over 235% in the last 60 years (Census of India, 2011), and this has coincided with a large increase in food production due to significant improvements in agriculture through India's Green Revolution. The increase in cereal production over the last decades has had an impact on the local environment, through increased agricultural land area, fertilizer and water use (Barik et al, 2017). Cereals play a dominant role in Indian diets and contribute to approximately 50% of the total water used in the agricultural production of food in India (Harris et al, 2017). Coinciding with the shift in production, cereal consumption patterns have changed with more rice and wheat and less coarse cereals such as millet, maize and sorghum being consumed (DeFries et al, 2018). The Indian population suffers a large burden of micronutrient deficiencies, and increasing consumption of nutrient-dense coarse cereals has been proposed as a beneficial public health nutrition intervention (DeFries et al, 2015; Rao et al, 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
