While food is an absolute necessity for well-being and health, its production consumes a lot of water, which is "an equally vital resource," said the EEA, launching a new report on water scarcity in Europe.
It argues that water use in agriculture is becoming unsustainable in parts of Europe, in part because current regulatory and pricing mechanisms "have failed to manage demand".
"Farmers seldom pay the full resource and environmental cost of large, publicly-managed irrigation systems, especially if laws proscribing or limiting abstraction are not effectively enforced," it added. However, farmers opt for water-intensive irrigation methods only "if increased yields outweigh the costs of installing irrigation systems and abstracting large amounts of water," according to the EEA.
According to the agency, water pricing is "the core mechanism" for making agricultural water use more efficient, and research shows that farmers reduce irrigation and adopt water efficiency practices when illegal extraction is effectively policed and water paid for by volume.
The EU agricultural association Copa-Cogeca recognises that agriculture is a big user of water, especially in Southern Europe, but underlines that "the upward trend for use of water for irrigation has slowed down in several countries during recent years," while "water-use efficiency in agriculture is improving every year" due to the modernisation of irrigation systems.
Copa-Cogeca is wary about water pricing, which "can bring about more negative effects to the agricultural sector than to other economic sectors, which can more easily pass on the costs for the use of water resources to the end-consumer," it said.
The EEA further believes national and EU subsidies can provide additional incentives for farmers to adopt water-saving techniques.
The EU strategy for adapting to climate change, currently in the making, is already considering using funding from the bloc's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for this (EurActiv 02/04/09). The EU Water Framework Directive already requires member states to impose water-pricing policies by 2010, to encourage consumers to use water resources more efficiently.
In addition to efforts to reduce demand, farmers could also be encouraged to seize opportunities offered by alternative supplies, such as the use of treated wastewater to irrigate crops – a method already successfully implemented in some EU member states, the agency said.
According to the EEA, agriculture accounts for 24% of water abstraction in Europe, compared to the 44% abstracted for cooling water in energy production. The impact of agriculture on water reserves is much bigger though: almost all cooling water is returned to a water body, while this is the case for only a third of the water used in agriculture.
