Asia needs to produce more food with less water
Asia’s ageing irrigation systems must be revitalized to produce more
crops with less water in the face of the region’s surging demand for
food (a 70-90 percent increase to 2030), a rising population, and
stressed water resources, say new studies released at a conference
recently. The studies were tabled at the Water: Crisis and Choices - ADB
and Partners Conference 2010, organized by the Asian Development Bank.
The five-day event has brought together over 600 water professionals
and policy makers from around the world to examine the critical water
challenges facing Asia, and the measures needed to overcome them. Asia
accounts for 70 percent of the world’s irrigated land and is home to
some of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes.
It also draws 80% of its available freshwater resources. But most
systems were built before the 1970’s, function poorly and often fail to
match the needs of farmers.
“Asia’s population will reach five billion by 2050 and feeding 1.5
billion additional people will require irrigation systems that generate
more value per drop of water,” says the study Growing More Food With
Less Water: How Can Revitalizing Asia’s Irrigation Help?.
The study - authored by Aditi Mukherji, David Molden, and Colin
Chartres of the International Water Management Institute, and Thierry
Facon of the Food and Agriculture Organization - notes that while the
total area under irrigation continues to rise in most parts of Asia,
systems are irrigating less land than originally intended, water
productivity is low, crop output has stagnated and many farmers are
exiting formal schemes.
With water resources pressured by urbanization, industrialization,
pollution, climate change, and competing demands from other sectors,
Asia needs to find ways to make its irrigation systems more efficient
and productive without tapping more water.
The study suggests that new technologies, such as those that use
surface water more efficiently, and improve water storage, need to be
looked at closely, while reforms which strengthen the management of
irrigation schemes are also crucial. Strategies must incorporate the
specific needs of different parts of the region, including Central Asia
with its ageing Soviet-era infrastructure, South Asia with its
underperforming surface schemes, and Southeast Asia where the rapid
expansion of hydropower schemes presents a challenge.
A second paper, Small-scale irrigation: Is this the future?, authored
by Facon and Mukherji, compares options, outcomes, and potential of
differently sized irrigation systems, including those where farmers are
increasingly ‘scavenging’ groundwater for use in atomistic irrigation
systems.
While stressing that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for the
region, it highlights the need for improved sector management and closer
cooperation and knowledge sharing amongst all stakeholders to improve
outcomes.
A third paper, Technologies in Irrigated Agriculture: Costs and
Benefits, authored by Chandra Madramootoo and M. Gopalakrishnan, of the
International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, uses case studies
from around the region to examine the broad range of tools available for
improving the efficiency of systems.
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