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Tomorrow
is World Food Day. Tonight 800 million people — nearly one person in every
seven — will go to bed hungry.
Governments
have rightly committed to reducing hunger, and the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) is today promoting the “International Alliance Against
Hunger” to address the issue. A central part of this alliance is to further
develop agriculture, particularly in developing countries where most chronically
hungry people live.
The
world will definitely need to produce more food to feed an expected 2 billion
additional people by 2050. But we need to be careful that in producing more
food, we are not left thirsty.
Irrigation
was responsible for more than half the increase in global food production
achieved in the 1960s to 1980s 'green revolution'. By 2000, 40 per cent of the
world's food was being produced on irrigated land. It has been calculated that
the irrigated area will need to increase by about 20 per cent over the next 25
years to provide enough extra food.
But
where will the water come from? Farming already takes 70 per cent of all water
used by humans. In developing countries, this figure rises to 90 per cent. Water
resources are already being used close to or beyond their limit in countries as
diverse as Australia, China, India, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Spain, the US, and Uzbekistan. The impacts of global warming are likely
to further disrupt water supplies.
It's
true that much of the water used for irrigation returns to the environment. But
it's often polluted due to soil erosion, pesticides, and fertilizers. On top of
this, changed runoff patterns and large dams are disrupting river flows. As a
result, the water available for drinking and other human uses is declining and
river ecosystems are being destroyed — including freshwater fisheries, a vital
source of protein and livelihoods for poor people in many counties.
As
one example, upstream dams and irrigation in the Indus River are partly
responsible for drinking water shortages in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
The lower reaches of the river have all but dried up. As a result, 80 per cent
of the 5 million people who once earned a living from fishing the river in the
southern province of Sindh now search for work in Pakistan's cities. And the
irrigation is ultimately making farmland unusable due to rising salt levels in
soils.
So
what can be done?
Fortunately,
producing food and saving water are not inversely related: increasing one does
not have to reduce the other. The key is to increase the productivity of water
— getting more ‘crop per drop’ — and to sustain river flows and
underground water reserves so that water supplies and freshwater ecosystems are
maintained.
A
variety of better farming and water management practices can achieve this. Due
to inefficiency, conventional irrigation wastes at least 60 per cent of the
water diverted. Methods such as center-pivot, drip, and furrow irrigation as
well as laser leveling of fields can significantly decrease water use, in some
cases by as much as 80 per cent. Farming practices like mulching, terracing,
strip cultivation, and 'no till' help slow down water so that it has time to
sink into the soil and ultimately the water table. Dams must be better planned
to have only minimal impacts on the river and its ecosystem, and much more use
should be made of rainwater harvesting.
It's
also important to grow crops that are suited to the location and season. In the
Niger River basin, for example, rice is grown in the dry season. Switching to
wheat would use 20–40 per cent less water. Or, farmers could adopt some rice
varieties that use a third less water. And misdirected farm subsidies and market
barriers in the US, Europe, and Japan — which encourage overproduction and
overuse of water, and harm farmers’ livelihoods — should be eliminated.
The
benefits of conservation-oriented farming practices go beyond saving water. They
are raising crop yields and land value, and reducing pesticide, fungicide, and
machinery needs in many parts of the world. Better practices can also buffer
natural disasters: after Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998,
conventional single-crop farms suffered 60–80 per cent more soil erosion and
crop damage than farms practicing conservation-oriented agriculture.
Clearly,
we have the means to increase food production and at the same time safeguard
water supplies. What's lacking is sufficient will and international support to
implement the necessary farming and water management practices. Governments must
do more than make promises. Together with the food industry and consumers, they
must start a new farming revolution — one that ensures there will always be
enough food and water for everyone.
For
further information:
Emma Duncan E-mail: eduncan@wwfint.org
Managing Editor Tel: +41 22 364 9556
WWF International Fax: +41 22 364 8307
Dr.
Jason Clay directs the Center for Conservation Innovation at WWF-US and
is the author of World Agriculture and the Environment (2003). Richard
Holland is Policy Adviser on Sustainable Water Use at WWF’s Living Waters
Programme.
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