To disseminate the use of AquaCrop, five workshops on “Capacity Development for Farm Management Strategies to Improve Crop-Water Productivity using AquaCrop” have been planned as a joint initiative of FAO and the UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC), in collaboration with local partners.

Objective of the 5-day workshops is to train participants from various regions in Africa, Asia, and Middle East in the practical applications of AquaCrop, in order to improve their skills in strategic management toward increasing crop water productivity in rainfed and irrigated production systems.

Global demand for fresh water is constantly rising as a consequence of population growth and the rise in living standards. Agriculture is not only the world's largest water user in terms of volume, but is also a relatively low-value, low efficiency, and highly subsidized user. In the years to come the agricultural sector will compete with households and industry for increasingly scarce water resources, and yet is under pressure to produce more food and fibre with less water to satisfy the food needs of a growing world population. The overall future scenario is further aggravated by the impact of climate change.

Rainfed and irrigated agriculture needs to improve its water productivity. To asses accurately crop yield under limited water availability, the crop-water model AquaCrop can be a valuable tool. AquaCrop focuses on simulating the attainable yield in response to water which is the key driver for agricultural production and which becomes increasingly the critical factor limiting crop production.