training programs for technicians and extension 

 personnel; and (4) offering, with other donors, to 

 increase financial assistance under concessional 

 terms and provide technical assistance to 

 investment projects designed to improve farm water 

 management, subject to suggestion 2 below. 



2- Enunciating a policy that would encourage ties 

 between financing for new irrigation and 

 improvement of existing projects. Recipient 

 countries could be asked to undertake to improve 

 farm water management as part of lending packages 

 for irrigation development generally. Many 

 developing countries are now quite conscious of the 

 problem and generally would welcome assistance. 

 Concessional loans might be weighted toward 

 improving the farm end of the irrigation operation. 



3- Supporting a stronger FAO program of information 

 dissemination about farm water management. 



4. Promoting the organization of an international 



council on farm water management along the lines of 

 ICRAF for the purpose of stimulating research and 

 research collaboration, technology transfer, and 

 the dissemination of information. 



3. Weather and Crop Information Systems 



Weather variability 1 is the single most important 

 factor affecting fluctuations in world food production. 

 Even if we had technology for modifying weather on a 

 large scale, we would probably still have to live with 

 weather variability for the most part. In terms of its 

 effects on agricultural production, we can best live 

 with weather variability through: (1) improved 

 forecasting of changes in the weather, (2) taking 

 protective steps to reduce the impact of unfavorable 

 weather, (3) taking advantage of favorable weather, and 

 (4) using our understanding of crop/weather 

 relationships to project growing conditions so that 

 improved policy decisions about food supplies can be 

 made on a national and international basis. 



More sophisticated modeling techniques for 

 forecasting weather, reducing risks of weather impacts, 

 and monitoring the impacts of weather variability are 

 rapidly being developed. However, countries vary in 

 levels of advancement in this area both geographically 

 and with respect to different types of agriculture. 

 Only about one-third of the world could be considered 

 well advanced with respect to crop/weather data 

 collections, with parts of Africa and the Caribbean 

 being the least well covered. Countries also vary in 

 their knowledge of crop/weather relationships; some 

 countries are quite advanced, while others still 



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