As part of its commitment to reducing its environment footprint, global sugar producer AB Sugar has opened a call for ideas to tackle irrigation water loss through the Innovate Irrigation Challenge, an initiative launched in partnership with WaterAid and the Centre for Industrial Sustainability at the University of Cambridge.
The winner of the challenge will have the opportunity to potentially work with AB Sugar and its partners to test the viability of their idea in the field.
University of Cambridge Centre for Industrial Sustainability director Professor Steve Evans says that the existing tools that farmers have at their disposal are unlikely to be sufficient to reduce water use in agriculture, underscoring the need for new ideas from “bright and passionate people”.
Entries are to be submitted online in a 48-hour period on June 19 and 20 at www.absugar.com/innovateirrigation.
AB Sugar advocacy head Katharine Teague says that the company is continually taking steps to conserve water by improving its water efficiency for each tonne of sugar produced and driving water stewardship by using “less drop per crop”.
“However, there is always more we can do to further improve this at our plants located in challenging environments and climates. Our ambition with this challenge is to encourage idea generation that could help solve one of the trickiest issues not only in sugar, but also in global agriculture as a whole,” she elaborates.
With about 844-million globally without access to clean water close to home, WaterAid senior policy analyst Virginia Newton-Lewis warns that “there is the real risk that climate change could threaten scarce water resources, so it’s vital that we explore ways to boost the amount of water available for people who need it most”.
One way of doing this, she suggests, is by finding new techniques to reduce water use and reuse wastewater in agriculture.