As the graph shows, the highest yields that can be obtained from irrigation are more than double the highest yields that can be obtained from rainfed agriculture. Such are the advantages of being able to control, precisely, water uptake by plant roots. Policies, institutions and laws can be devised to increase water productivity at many different levels. In addition, transparency and accountability must be improved, and incentives provided for saving water. The best and most innovative technology in the world is of no use if people cannot use it, see no advantage in it or do not understand it.
Gender equity is crucial.
Women and men have an equal right to access water, even though they may have different roles in the maintenance and use of water resources. Class equality is also crucial - often, the people who most need a new say in how water is managed, and who know most about how it should be managed, are poor women smallholders. Towards a better future. FAO believes in a future in which both rural and urban people have secure livelihoods and adequate nutrition. In such a future, farmers would be in control of their livelihoods and resource base, and would produce all the food needed, both by farmers and non-farmers, using their own ingenuity and the physical resources available to them.