• by Marwaan Macan-Markar (bangkok)
• Wednesday, October 27, 2010
• Inter Press Service

Asia’s search for ways to feed over one billion new mouths in the next 40 years is prompting experts to call for renewed faith in its wide network of irrigation systems in order to ensure adequate food production.

This push by agriculture and water experts comes at a time when concern about the region’s irrigation systems have steadily entered discussions about the impact of climate change on food security.

Rain-fed agriculture is more vulnerable to erratic weather patterns, so that the use of irrigation systems is viewed as being more dependable to farmers across the rice bowls of South Asia, South-east Asia and East Asia.

'Irrigated agriculture is a more secure platform,' says Thierry Facon, senior water management officer at the Asia-Pacific office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). 'Rain-fed agriculture is less productive.'

This distinction has become more stark against the backdrop of uncertain weather patterns arising from climate change. 'Farmers are reluctant to invest in good seeds and fertiliser in rain-fed areas because of climate change uncertainties,' Facon explained to IPS. 'It is in this area that you find most of the rural poor and vulnerable populations.'

Studies by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) mirror this reality. 'Approximately 27 million hectares of rain-fed rice are frequently affected by drought,' states a report by one of the region’s premier rice research bodies based in Los Banos, in the Philippines. 'The rain-fed rice environments experience multiple abiotic stresses and are characterised by high levels of uncertainty, particularly with regard to the timing, duration and intensity of rainfall.'

But if the irrigation systems built and managed by governments are to help better rice and wheat yields, these largely ageing water distribution networks must be upgraded to meet farmers’ new demands, according to a clutch of new studies released recently at a meeting in Manila hosted by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB).

These demands include more even distribution of water by these irrigation systems. 'It is very common for farmers not to get adequate water when the need it,' says Elizabeth Humphreys, a senior scientist at IRRI. 'It forces farmers to pump groundwater.'

'Farmers at the bottom end of the irrigation system are also at a disadvantage,' she said in an IPS interview. 'The ones who benefit most are the farmers at the top end of the irrigation system.'

In addition to the largely top-down management style of irrigation systems and poor financing to upgrade them, 'farmers now need more flexibility to grow cash crops, but the system built cannot provide this service,' says Facon. 'What was promised is no longer sufficient for farmers. The management style is not responsive to the new farming trends.'

Many of the current irrigation systems were built when the Green Revolution began to sweep across the continent in the 1960s. This radical push to increase rice production through the introduction of high-yielding rice varieties in the paddy fields across Asia has been credited for helping slash the numbers living in hunger.

According to the U.N. food agency, the Green Revolution accounted for a 300 percent increase in rice production in the past four decades, helping to 'reduce the proportion of hunger from 34 percent in 1970 to 16 percent in 2006.'

And now, as the region faces the challenge of having to feed 1.5 billion new mouths in the next four decades, attention is once again turning to what the irrigation systems can deliver. 'Asia’s population will reach five billion people by 2050 and feeding 1.5 billion additional people will require irrigation systems that generate more value per drop of water,' states ‘Growing More Food with Less Water: How Can Revitalising Asia’s Irrigation Help?’ one of the studies released at the AsDB meeting that drew some 600 policymakers.

'Asia accounts for 70 percent of the world’s irrigated land and is home to some of the oldest and largest irrigation schemes,' states the Manila-based Bank. 'But most systems were built before the 1970s, function poorly and often fail to match the needs of farmers.'

Rice is the staple for over three billion people, most of whom live in Asia. The continent accounts for 90 percent of world’s rice production grown on an estimated 250 million farms, according to IRRI.

The leading producers of rice, planted to some 150 million hectares worldwide, are China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and the Philippines.

Of that, 79 million hectares account for rice grown in irrigated lowlands, which produces 75 percent of the world’s annual crop, states an IRRI paper, ‘Rice and Water’.

Currently, 56 percent of the world’s irrigated areas are located in Asia, with South-east Asia accounting for the largest share, followed by East Asia and South Asia, the paper notes. 'The proportion of the Asian rice area that is irrigated increased substantially from the late 1970s (when it was 35 percent) to the mid-1990s (when it stood at 44 percent).'

'This occurred because of an increase in the irrigated areas coupled with a large decline in upland and deepwater rice cultivation,' it adds. 'In many irrigated areas, rice is grown as a monoculture with two crops per year.'

Northern India offers an example of the water sources farmers will turn to if they find irrigation systems unresponsive to their needs — groundwater. Punjab has seen the sprouting of 1.3 million tubewells in order to irrigate an agricultural area of more than four million hectares.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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