Rome — A new Google-powered online tool that uses satellite data to map water consumption in Africa and the Middle East aims to help farmers produce more crops with less water, the UN said on Thursday. WaPOR, an open-access database developed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), enables countries to easily monitor how efficiently farms use water, allowing for improvements in irrigation and food production, the agency said. Climate change and a growing global population, set to reach more than 9-billion by 2050, are putting additional pressure on the world’s ever-scarcer water resources. As agriculture is responsible for 70% of all water used on the planet, it will be critical to increase "crop per drop", experts say. "Water-use continues to surge at the same time that climate change — with increasing droughts and extreme weather — is altering and reducing water availability for agriculture," said FAO’s deputy director-general Maria Helena Semedo said in a statement. "T...
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