Food & water crisis

First it was the Prime Minister warning of drought in the country. Next came the state of the nation’s environment report, which paints a grim picture. Then yet another report on the state of vanishing groundwater. All is not well but what are we doing?

The third government report on the state of India's environment paints a grim picture, the Economic Times reports: "At least 45% of India's land area is degraded due to erosion, soil acidity, alkalinity and salinity, waterlogging and wind erosion." Particulate air pollution is on the rise in cities, hitting 110 million people, causing public health damage costs in 2004 of about $3 billion.

Intense irrigation across a 1,200 mile wide area of northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is depleting groundwater supplies at a rate of 1.5-4 inches per year. And that in an area where 600 million people live. The big picture of Indian groundwater comes from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission.

The area of land surveyed is the most heavily irrigated in the world, with 50-75% or more of land equipped with irrigation from groundwater or reservoir water. This new data shows that groundwater is being withdrawn at a rate 70% faster in the past decade than in the 1990s.

Monsoon rains in India between June 1 and Aug. 12 were 29% below average and nearly 177 of the 625 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit. The monsoon is crucial for the agriculture sector as most farmers don't have irrigation facilities and depend on rains for their crops. Agriculture is key to the Indian economy as it contributes about 18% of gross domestic product and provides jobs to more than two-thirds of the country's 1.1 billion population.

The Ministry of Agriculture has been largely reactive as also in the recent case where it issued a notification on providing a distress diesel subsidy - "to enable the farmers to provide supplementary irrigation through diesel pumpsets…” as also encourage of more fertilizer intensive agriculture!

Now, scientists meeting at World Water Week in Sweden are saying that without serious reforms to the way many Asian countries manage water chronic food shortages may result -- even without the impact of climate change on water supplies. The BBC quotes report co-author Tushaar Shah: Without water productivity gains, South Asia would need 57% more water for irrigated agriculture and East Asia 70% more. Given the scarcity of land and water, and growing water needs for cities, such a scenario is untenable.

In Revitalizing Asia's Irrigation, the International Water Management Institute and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization say that food and animal feed demand in Asia is expected to double by 2050 and that relying on trade to supply this will "impose a huge and politically untenable burden on the economies of many developing countries."

The solution to all this, the report says, is 1) modernizing irrigation systems that in many areas are 30-40 years old; 2) support farmers initiatives using locally-adapted and appropriate irrigation technologies; 3) tap into public-private partnerships to provide incentives to improve water delivery efficiency (though it is admitted that this is "largely untested"; 4) expand education through engineering programs, workshops for farmers, etc.; 5) invest outside the irrigation sector in areas which influence it.

Are we doing anything for the long-term management of water and food production? How deep and how longer can we keep digging for groundwater? Is it not time to tackle agricultural practices on a war footing, for what is sustainable?