Confronting the Realities of Wastewater Use in Irrigated Agriculture: Lessons Learned and Recommendations

This concluding chapter synthesises results and lessons learned throughout this volume, which deals with the reality of wastewater use in agriculture in developing countries. It then extrapolates from these lessons, to make pragmatic recommendations aimed at protecting both the public health and farmers’ livelihoods. Addressing these lessons in a significant fashion is becoming ever more necessary, as it is likely that wastewater use will increase in many less-developed countries, due to growing urban and peri-urban populations and their matching demands for produce. The practice also deserves recognition for its potential socio-economic benefits, since some farmers would be unable to earn a living without using wastewater, and for others, its use increases the income they would normally make, lifting them out of poverty. However, unregulated wastewater use also raises serious concerns about the health of both consumers and farmers, creating the competing need to balance health impacts against livelihood needs. This chapter elucidates lessons learned, and makes four recommendations to policy-makers and practitioners: 1. to develop and apply appropriate guidelines for wastewater use, 2. to treat wastewater and control pollution at source, 3. to apply a range of non-treatment management options, and 4. to conduct research to both improve understanding of the practice, and to identify opportunities and constraints to the adoption of these recommendations. 174 N.I. Faruqui et al. common obstacles to improving the practice, and from these it has been possible to identify key issues that must be addressed in order to maximise the potential benefits, while minimising the potential costs that wastewater use offers. This concluding chapter now summarises these lessons learned, makes recommendations, and points to future research needs, that could contribute to safe and sustainable wastewater use under the diverse conditions that we have seen. Extent The first lesson forms the fundamental basis from which we must proceed, and it is that the general lack of knowledge of the importance of wastewater use impedes its inclusion as a priority issue to be considered in policy-making. Case studies from this volume illustrate this aspect and it is estimated that up to one-tenth of the world’s population eats food produced using wastewater (Lunven, 1992). As popula-