20 March 2014: Scientists and experts met in São Carlos, Brazil, to discuss ways of a more efficient water use in agriculture in Brazil, Germany and Chile. The 3rd Symposium Animal Production and Water Management (SPARH) was organized by Julio Cesar Pascale Palhares , scientists at Embrapa Southeast Livestock.

The aim of the symposium was to discuss an environmentally sound water management in the supply chain for a competitive agriculture. Still, livestock producers in the three countries are not sufficiently aware of the relevance of a resource-efficient water management is the unanimous opinion of the researchers.

In her presentation, Katrin Drastig, ATB scientist and leader of the AgroHyd project, pointed out the need for quantifying  the water consumption for individual management measures. This is the first step to improve water management and water efficiency in agriculture. Although in Germany the quantification of the total water consumption using water meters is common practice, only a detailed control of the water use for the respective process steps could allow targeted action towards a more water efficiency, underlined Katrin Drastig.

Francisco S. Salazar from the Chilean Instituto de Investigaciones de Agropecuarias highlighted the high saving potential in Chile and cited as an example the water spent for cleaning the milking parlors and rooms in dairy production. By reusing water and an improved sewage management consumption can be significantly reduced.