Proceedings of the conferences

Background

Workshop
Water Saving Agriculture to mitigate impacts of Climate Change
22nd – 26th October 2018

The workshop “Water Saving Agriculture to mitigate impacts of Climate Change” is organized by Lancaster University (UK) and La Molina National Agricultural University (Peru), in the framework of the Newton-Paulet Fund, a joint fund between UK’s and Peru’s Governments, represented by the British Council in UK, and by the National Council on Science, Technology and Technological Innovation (CONCYTEC) in Peru. The goal of the Newton-Paulet Fund, named after the renowned Peruvian scientist Pedro Paulet, is to promote science and innovation to contribute to economic development, improve the quality of life in Peru, and strengthen ties to meet future global challenges.

The Workshop

Peru’s food security is frequently threatened by extreme climatic phenomena, especially droughts and excessive rainfall induced by The El Niño phenomenon. From October 2016 to February 2017, Peru faced the worst drought in years, with a state of emergency declared in 17 regions, and over 350 000 hectares of crops lost. Local food security becomes dependent on food imports (eg. in the highland Puno Altiplano region, 87% of food was imported from other areas during drought years, while years of excessive rainfall caused 60% import dependence).

Thus, this workshop on water-saving agriculture, which aims to develop
mitigation options via a participatory approach to water management, is timely and important. It requires knowledge exchange between participants and professionals from the two cohosting institutions, the Lancaster Environment Centre of Lancaster University (UK) and the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering of Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (Perú), the wider researcher base in both countries and local stakeholders.

Co-hosting institutions

The Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM) is a public higher education institution specialized in promoting the wise management of natural resources and environmental conservation within agriculture. UNALM has over 300 researchers from different disciplines at eight research centres throughout Peru. Its interdisciplinary work on farming systems maximises opportunities for long-term economic development by working with local communities.

Lancaster Environment Centre’s (LEC) track record in high quality fundamental research has made a significant impact via extensive engagement with local stakeholders. This expertise was recognized by the Plant Water Stress Research group contributing one of LEC’s impact
case studies in REF2014 (http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=43604), based on applying water-saving irrigation techniques. By providing innovative postgraduate training opportunities for technical managers within the food supply chain, it maximizes delivery of relevant science to industry professionals.

Course program – Logistics

Workshop activities will be developed both centrally (conference centre at UNALM’s main campus) and regionally (via field excursions to meet local stakeholders), aiming to bring together actors from throughout the farming system. Beyond the workshop participants (from UK and Peru), we will leverage a wider academic community to ensure participants benefit from local knowledge and rural livelihoods.

Course program – Topics

The El Niño and subsequent La Niña phenomena are serious climatic events causing droughts and flooding that affect Peruvian food security, with the most vulnerable areas comprising the southern highlands, as the Puno Altiplano, and the coastal valleys. These climate effects are exacerbated by human water resources management, via excessive irrigation abstraction
and/or hydrological changes resulting from land clearing. It is therefore timely to develop this workshop with the following technical themes:

1. Catchment Water Management: Societal needs (domestic, agricultural, industrial); Hydrological sustainability and ecosystem service provisioning; spatio-temporal scaling issues
2. Water Policy: Climate variability and infrastructure planning; institutional systems for water management and development; economic valuation of water
3. Water-saving agriculture in cropping systems: Diagnosing crop water stress, breeding for drought resilience; irrigation scheduling.