Less water in agriculture? Potential and challenges in optimizing water use efficiency

Agriculture is a main user of fresh water. Excess water use can lead to the depletion of groundwater and surface water sources, with detrimental effects for the environment and society. Providing enough food for a growing population in a (water)-sustainable way is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. It can only be tackled by the combination of strategies. One strategy is to develop crops with a higher water use efficiency (WUE). In simple terms ‘more crop per drop’. Turc et al. (2024) have shown that up-regulation of non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) reduces water consumption in tobacco plants under drought stress. In this Insight article, we discuss this work in a wider context of approaches and challenges to improve WUE in crops.