The key to averting a global food crisis may simply be a matter of storing more water, according to a new report released yesterday at World Water Week in Stockholm.

As we’ve seen with severe droughts in Pakistan followed just months later by debilitating floods, the climate change impacts scientists have warned us about for years may finally be here, making the weather harder to predict and prepare for, and traditional sources of irrigation water much less reliable.

These changes have dire consequences for feeding an ever-expanding global population, especially in areas of Africa and Asia where millions of farmers rely solely on rainwater for their crops, according to the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI), which issued the report.

(Globally, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of freshwater use. Learn more about the planet’s thirsty food on National Geographic’s freshwater website.)

In Asia, 66 percent of cropland is rain-fed, while 94 percent of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa relies on rain alone, according to IWMI. These are the regions where water storage infrastructure is least developed and where nearly 500 million people are at risk of dire food shortages, the report cautions.

In sub-Saharan Africa, existing water storage is equal to less than 26,400 gallons (100 cubic meters) per person, compared to 1.3 million gallons (5,000 cubic meters)-enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools-in the U.S., according to Colin Chartres, director general of IWMI.

“Climate change will hit these people [in Africa and Asia] hard, so we have to invest heavily and quickly in adaptation,” said Chartres in a statement. “We’ve missed the boat on climate change mitigation,” he told National Geographic News.&obsp;