ASIA: Water scarcity adds to food pressures – Rice farmers are under pressure to produce more
HANOI, 12 November 2010 (IRIN): Millions more people across Asia will become food insecure due to increased water scarcities, reinforcing the need for greater efficiency in both irrigated and rain-fed rice production.
– The food security of hundreds of millions of people will be adversely affected, Robert Zeigler, director-general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) told IRIN on the sidelines of the 3rd International Rice Congress in Hanoi.
The five-day conference – which ends Friday (12.11.10) – brought together more than 1.200 farmers, scientists and industry experts.
Rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population, inclu-ding 640 million undernourished people living in Asia, where approximately 90 percent of all rice is grown.
Asia’s 200 million rice farms – most of which are smaller than one hectare – typically use about 3.000 litres of water in their paddy fields to produce 1 kg of rice. Less than half of that water is consumed by the plant.
Areas of particular concern include the Indo-Gangetic Plain in India, China, northwestern Bangladesh, parts of Pakistan, as well as drought-affected northeastern Thailand, currently the world’s largest exporter of rice, Zeigler said.
Global demand
Global average rice yields need to rise by at least 1,5 percent annually to keep pace with expected demand. Over the past 20 years (1989-2009), average rice yields have increased by only 1 percent, IRRI reported.
But with the world’s population expected to top eight billion by 2030, keeping pace with demand will prove a challenge.
Global rice demand currently increases by about eight million MT (metric tons) annually. In 10 years the world will need to produce 80 million MT more than it does today.
Compounding this are competition for domestic and industrial water usage, the impact of climate change, environmental pressures, less available land to grow rice, and the need to intensify rice research.
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