Currently, the Danube River Basin is facing two pressing challenges in the context of water and agriculture: securing availability of water resources and ensuring food security under changing climate. Lack of water and pollution may impact both agriculture and water resources. This is exacerbated by climate change-induced droughts, making water scarcity an even greater concern, alongside water quality issues.

To address these challenges, agriculture and water management need to be well aligned by coordinated strategies and joint actions to create synergic effects and to ensure the protection and efficient use of water resources, the economic livelihood of the farmers and the production of high-quality food. To achieve this, decoupling of agricultural development from pollution and water scarcity is necessary.
Recently, a dialogue was initiated by the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) between the agricultural and water sectors, resulted in the development of a Guidance Document on sustainable agriculture illustrating opportunities for decoupling. The ICPDR aims to further intensify the dialogue and strengthen the connection with agriculture, focusing on key common topics related to the decoupling concept and in the context of managing drought and pollution.
A stepwise approach is proposed with the following phases:

• Thematic online webinars could offer the possibility to build connection with the agricultural sector and to start a dialogue and exchange on common issues.
• In the next step, national roundtables in selected Danube countries could be organized to bring together relevant national stakeholders such as ministries, associations and academia.
• If the dialogue process has established, international workshops could be organized for a basin-wide exchange of knowledge and experiences.

Concept of the Kick-off Webinar

The kick-off webinar aims to provide an opportunity to build connection between water and agriculture by addressing the needs and challenges of both sectors, identifying further common discussion topics to jointly explore and demonstrating good examples of established cooperation between the two sectors at national level. The target audience of the webinar are experts and stakeholders in the agricultural and water sectors, i.e. representatives of the administration, agencies, associations, academia and other relevant organizations.

Review the attached documents for further information.