Asian countries face specter of severe water problems

MANILA, Philippines - By the year 2030, most Asian countries will have severe water problems and this calls for new approaches to meet the growing demand for agriculture.

A study conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) shows that some water-scarce nations are using water faster than the resource can be replenished.

“One out of five developing countries including the Philippines, will face serious water shortages and consequently food shortages by 2030, if nothing is done to save global resources,” the report said.

“Water is a life-sustaining gift God has given to us. It is a source not only of food security but also of life itself. Globally, there is enough water. But by 2030, it may become scarce,” the FAO report also said.

In a paper presented sometime ago during a conference on Agricultural and Rural Development in Asia, Randolph Barker, professor emeritus at Cornell University in New York, USA, and Mark Rosengrant, division director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, USA, said irrigated agriculture in Asia uses approximately 80 percent of the water resources.

“Almost two thirds of this water is used to irrigate cereal grains. As water becomes scarce, its demand for non-agricultural purposes has grown. There is a growing desire to increase water productivity by avoiding wastage and reallocating water to higher-value uses,” they said.

Irrigated agriculture in Asia uses approximately 80 percent of the water resources, of which almost two-thirds is used to irrigate cereal grains. The growing scarcity of water and the rapid growth of Asia’s economies have created an urgent need to manage water resources for irrigation and for other uses.

Barker and Rosengrant noted that “there has been very little concern for the management of water resources in agriculture. Most crops, they said, were grown under rain-fed conditions with supplemental irrigation.

Records from the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), show that only about 1.4 million hectares of rice lands in the Philippines are irrigated, while 1.3 million hectares are rain-fed or nearly half of the country’s rice fields still depend on the weather for irrigation.

Henry Lim, whose firm, the SL Agritech Corp. produces hybrid rice seeds, said “no amount of technology or land availability can make our country self-sufficient in rice if we have insufficient irrigation facilities.”