Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute

Dr. Nicholas Brozovic, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignNovember 1, 2013 The links between groundwater, rural economies, streams and instream ecosystems have been the subject of extended litigation, media coverage, and academic and government study. Common themes include alarm over long-term groundwater depletion and drought-driven annual drawdowns, the impending transition from irrigated to dryland agriculture, and damages to surface water resources and groundwater-dependent ecosystems species from surface water-groundwater interaction. In response to concerns about water use, there has been localized, rapid innovation in groundwater management institutions. In the United States, changes have generally occurred as a result of either legal impositions on water management districts or a desire to preserve a rural way of life for future generations. For example, quantification, metering, and enforcement of groundwater pumping rights have been established in a few water districts in the United States, as well as elsewhere in the world. Nascent groundwater pumping permit markets are emerging, and voluntary reductions in agricultural groundwater pumping and major changes to water rights systems have been implemented. This seminar will discuss current challenges and opportunities – both theoretical and applied – for the analysis, development, and implementation of effective and robust groundwater management.

Dr. Joanna Endter-Wada, Utah State UniversityOctober 25, 2013 Food production occurs in highly diverse contexts all over the globe, each with unique geographies and histories. Yet the common foundation is connecting water, land, and people to produce food. Stable and productive food systems depend not only on implementing on-farm scientific and technological innovations, but securing public support for agriculture to ensure its survival in larger landscape and societal transformations. Promoting policies and practices to protect and prioritize water and land for agricultural production requires place-based approaches that seek to harmonize the needs of farming, the environment, and growing cities. Research conducted on agricultural, wetland, and urban water uses in transitioning and urbanizing landscapes of the Great Salt Lake Watershed is presented to illustrate some of the challenges and opportunities involved in maintaining agriculture.

Dr. Aditi Mukherji, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu, NepalOctober 28, 2013 In this presentation, I will talk about my experience of doing policy relevant research on water, food and agriculture in India and discuss how one such piece of research led to changes in Groundwater Law and electricity policies in the state of West Bengal. My presentation will first outline the challenges of managing water for food security in Asia and elsewhere and provide a short glimpse of research that I have done in the Nile Basin, Central Asia and in Bangladesh. Much of this research was motivated by a simple question: ‘why do farmers do what they do’? And answers, I often found, lie in the arena of policies, institutions and markets. I will then focus on one particular thread of research that I have been pursuing for the last one decade. It looks at water, food and energy nexus in India in general and juxtaposes two opposite phenomena: one of groundwater over-exploitation in northern and southern India and that of groundwater underdevelopment in eastern India. Difference in regional intensity of groundwater use, I posit, is related to differences in energy policy and public discourses around water, food and the role of farmers. Using example from my own state of West Bengal, I will show how policies governing groundwater use has had very little to do with groundwater resource conditions per se, but a lot more to do with politics and public perceptions about the resource. I will discuss how my research was able to identify some of the impediments faced by farmers in accessing groundwater, and how through direct interactions with highest level policy makers in the state, I was able to communicate my research results to them. This in turn led to changes in Groundwater Law and electricity policies in 2011. I will conclude my talk by giving a brief update on implementation of these changes on the ground and delineate areas for further research.

Media briefing before the opening of the 2012 global Water for Food Conference.

Monday, 10:30 a.m.-noon CDT: Industry Leaders Panel, featuring Mogens Bay, chairman and CEO, Valmont Industries; Carl Hausmann, managing director, Global Government and Corporate Affairs, Bunge Ltd.; and Kerry Preete, senior vice president of global strategy, Monsanto Co.; moderated by John Briscoe, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Environmental Engineering, Harvard University.