Improve policy and institutional framework
As agriculture will always use more water than any other sector, governments need to review carefully their agricultural and food policies.

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Political implications
In regions facing water stress, governments may want to take the political decision to forego domestic self-sufficiency and instead aim for food security through trade, thereby recognising the value of “virtual water”. Policies will also need to focus on increasing the crop productivity per drop of water and per unit of investment. Basically, this means that yields need to be raised in both irrigated and rainfed farming.