Environmental, economic and social efficiencies of irrigated farming systems: Using water footprint indicators to compare farm income and labour generated per volume of water available in irrigated farming systems in Campania, Italy

Agriculture is not only producing food and other products. It is also a major economic sector, representing, especially in developing countries, an important part of GDP; and a major employer, with more than half of the total workforce in many low income countries. In many of these countries irrigation plays a key role to increase and stabilize income, and it is likely to increase with climate change and increased variability of rainfall patterns. It is also a crucial mean to increase productivity of small holdings. In many countries, where holdings are small it is essential to enable farmers to ensure their food security and a decent income. In some countries, including India and many African countries, the workforce is expected to grow, with an important part of it to be employed in agriculture. At the same time many of the regions, where agriculture is the most important from an economical and social point of view are experiencing increasing water scarcity. In many cases, as has been noted for the Mediterranean area, water availability is the main limiting factor to agricultural development. Increasingly agriculture is also in competition for water use with other economic activities. This calls for means to assess and compare agricultural production systems and irrigation plans not only in terms of physical production of agricultural commodities, but also in terms of income and jobs generated by the activity.