The potential of irrigated lands to reduce food dependency in Mexico

The loss of food self‐sufficiency in developing countries has been attributed to a variety of factors, such as environmental degradation, population growth, increases in the area planted to feedgrains, perverse trade patterns, and inefficient and unsustainable uses of natural resources. However, the roles played by feedgrain production and different structures of the food chain are not well understood. By viewing irrigation water input as a basis for energy and protein production, insight is gained into the comparative water resource productivity of various food chains in Mexico. Although some regions of Mexico can become more productive in their water use by changing from one basic food crop to another, the largest productivity gains using the existing resource base may be attained by switching from soybean‐livestock and sorghum‐livestock systems to basic crop production for human consumption.

Keywords:

• agricultural productivity
• food chain
• food security
• irrigation
• Mexico
• politics
• water