Water Scarcity Compounds India’s Food Insecurity

      A woman carries firewood in Gujarat on Aug. 6, 2012, as others rest under a tree after they migrated because of a water shortage. Reuters photo: Ahmad Masood

Since India’s independence, the mammoth task of feeding its hundreds of millions, most of whom are extremely poor, has been a major challenge to policymakers. In the coming decades, the issue of food insecurity is likely to affect almost all Indians. However, for the poorest amongst us, it could be catastrophic. India ranks 65 of 79 countries in the Global Hunger Index. This is extremely alarming.

In the past few years, uneven weather patterns combined with over exploited and depleting water resources in various parts of India have wreaked havoc on food security, particularly for small and marginal farmers, as well as the rural poor.

The recently launched Global Food Security Index (GFSI) estimates that in 2012, there are 224 million Indians, around 19 percent of the total population, who are undernourished. The same report also estimates that while the Indian government has various institutions designed to deal with the impact of inflation on food prices, it only spends 1 percent of agricultural GDP on research to build food security for the poorest. Overall, India ranked 66th on the GFSI. It is estimated that one in four of the world’s malnourished children is in India, more even than in sub-Saharan Africa.

Water insecurity, further exacerbated by climate change, is arguably the most important factor for India’s food security. India’s total water availability per capita is expected to decline to 1,240 cubic metres per person per year by 2030, perilously close to the 1,000 cubic metre benchmark set by the World Bank as ‘water scarce’.

Factors such as increasing usage, poor infrastructure, and pollution have led to a decline of water quantity and quality in India. Climate change, meanwhile, is expected to cause a two-fold impact.

One, increasing temperatures have hastened the rate of melt of the Himalayan glaciers, upon which major Indian rivers like the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra depend.

Second, the effect of climate change on monsoons in India will cause them to become more erratic, arriving earlier or later and lasting for shorter, more intense periods of time. India’s farming communities depend overwhelmingly on the monsoon, as their cropping patterns are built around it. The combined effect of climate change and over exploitation is violating the water cycle, degrading aquifers and  eroding ground water resources.

Over 50 percent of agricultural land in India depends entirely on groundwater. In North and Northeast India, where perennial rivers (rivers that have water year round, i.e. glacier fed rivers in India, such as the Ganges) sustain the agricultural land, have to deal with issues such as flooding caused by climate change impacts such as speedier glacier melt and erratic monsoons.

Meanwhile, farmers in states in West and South India, where rivers are seasonal, have to depend heavily on rapidly depleting groundwater resources.

The worst affected by this type of water-fuelled food insecurity are the small farmers of India. Estimates suggest that between 1995 and 2010, over 2,50,000 farmers in India, mostly from states like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, killed themselves. Most of these farmers were drowning in vicious cycles of debt caused by failed monsoons and increasing droughts.

Responses to this crisis, including the National Action Plan on Climate Change, lay out various solutions and intended interventions, but most focus on the long term. To secure the future of India’s water resources vis-à-vis its agriculture in the future, it is important that certain steps be taken immediately. First and foremost, authorities will have to remove the mindset that water is an endless resource and the solution to water woes is simply a further development of India’s fast depleting groundwater.

Indeed, Dr. Mihir Shah, co-Founder, Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS) and member of the Planning Commission of India has stated that the ‘era of further water development may be over’ and emphasized that we have to urgently introduce more efficient water management. In this regard, promotion of irrigation efficiency will be crucial in the future.

Systems such as drip irrigation and System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to farmers across India will be essential. It will also be necessary to promote water conservation methods such as rain water harvesting, which has been successful in urban India, in villages as well.

At the same time, reducing inefficiencies and water wastage through conveyance losses will require governmental and NGO support in actions such as replacing faulty pipes and pumps.  Hence, India needs to invest on improving its water productivity, and any capacity to produce more food like rice with less water will be an important contribution to sustainable water and food security.

In short, India is facing a bleak future of becoming water scarce and painfully food insecure. How exactly are the country’s hundreds of millions, who depend entirely on agriculture for their livelihoods, as well as those that depend on agriculture for their food needs, to make ends meet?

Delaying this issue is simply not an option for India as this could lead to increased instability, poor human development and enhance inter-generational poverty. India needs to ensure food security through sustainable development and create resilience amongst the most vulnerable in the country: the poor.


reuters.com

Water, Water, Not Everywhere

Few people in the world are more water-conscious than California farmers.

The state leads the nation in farm revenue and produces nearly half of the domestic supply of fruits, nuts and vegetables. It also boasts nine of the top 10 producing counties in the nation, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Yet California is one of the driest states in the U.S., getting an average of just 22 inches of precipitation annually compared with more than 40 inches for states like Missouri and New York. And, with nearly 40 million people, California is also the most populous state—meaning there's a lot of competition for that precious rain and snow.

How do the farmers make do with so little water? They use technology and the state's topography to stretch existing supplies as far as they can. "If you have limited water supplies, you have to be as careful and efficient as you can with it," says Larry Schwankl, an irrigation expert with the University of California Cooperative Extension.

The efficiencies start at the northern end of the Central Valley, the 400-mile corridor that's home to most of the state's farmland. There, farmers along the Sacramento River use a system called flow-through, which means that the water they take but don't use flows back into the river by a network of valves and drains.

As water flows to the driest southern reaches of the valley via the California Aqueduct, many farmers use drip irrigation, microsprinklers and extensively plumbed groundwater caverns—filled with runoff from the Sierra Nevada—to maximize their water usage.

Daniel Errotabere, for instance, says his 5,200-acre farm's conversion to drip irrigation over the past five years has helped yield water savings as high as 50%—helping to cushion the blow during the most recent drought. "You can't deliver water much more efficiently than what we are doing today," Mr. Errotabere said on a recent tour of the farm near Riverdale, Calif.

The accompanying images outline how irrigation and water conservation work in California's Central valley.

By JIM CARLTON@The Wall Street Journal

Does Your Gas Tank Hold Enough Food To Feed 22 People?

Here's a little math problem for you: How many calories go into the ethanol that's in your tank of gas?

Enough to feed 22 people, if you're talking the bare minimum calories needed in a single day, according to researchers at theNew England Complex Sciences Institute.

Their calculation, published today, is based on all the corn-based ethanol that's sloshing around in most U.S. gas tanks; it's really just grain alcohol — a quaff familiar to many college students.Most of the gas sold at the pump contains about 10 percent ethanol. You would never eat the ethanol once it's blended into gasoline, of course. But a lot of corn goes into making ethanol, and the researchers recently crunched the numbers on that corn's food energy value, which you can see in the graphic below.

Source: Yaneer Bar-Yam, NECSI

Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe, NPR

The researchers detail their facts and figures here. A few caveats: The corn used to make ethanol doesn't all get turned into fuel. About a third of it comes back out of the ethanol factory as distiller's grains, which are then used to feed animals.

So some of those corn calories still end up in your steak, not your car. And if that corn weren't used to make ethanol, it wouldprobably go into animal bellies (and, only indirectly, into human ones). Only a relatively small percentage of field corn gets processed into foods — from corn meal to sweeteners; the majority becomes animal feed or ethanol.

Still, the bigger question here — whether so much food should be burned up as fuel — is getting asked a lot these days. This year, ethanol could consume as much as 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop. But with the worst drought in more than 50 years leading to soaring corn prices, many people are calling on the U.S. to rethink its mandate requiring refineries to make a minimum amount of ethanol — 13 billion gallons this year — and blend it into gas.

The EPA is currently accepting public comments on whether to waive the ethanol mandate for next year. By law, a decision is due by Nov. 13. Farmers blame the mandate for driving up the price of livestock feed (some have resorted to feeding their cattle candyas a cheaper alternative).

That's why several governors and members of Congress haveasked the EPA to lower or suspend the Renewable Fuel Standard requirements for next year.

But the researchers at NESCI say there's an even more pressing reason to consider dropping the ethanol mandate than hungry cattle: the risk of hungry, rioting people.

For Americans, higher corn prices will likely translate into higher meat prices at the grocery store next year. But it's the world's poor who really feel the impact. A growing number of studies have blamed the ethanol mandate in the U.S. — by far the world'slargest corn exporter — for pushing up food prices around the world.

And as we told you earlier this week, mathematical modeling by NECSI researchers shows a strong link between high food prices and social unrest in places sensitive to price swings — so strong that it may be predictive of when riots are more likely to break out. That model found that the conversion of corn to ethanol isone of the key factors pushing food prices higher.

"What happens here ... is driving the global food crisis," Yaneer Bar-Yam of the New England Complex Sciences Institute tells The Salt. "We've put into place policies that affect food in a very large way."

But corn math can get complicated, and freezing or easing the ethanol mandate may not help as much as its critics hope. Apaper by economists at Purdue University recently looked at several different possible scenarios. Their conclusion? Changing the ethanol mandate could make a big dent in corn prices next year — or not. The folks at WONKBLOG do a good job ofbreaking down the findings. As they succinctly put it, "there's no simple solution here."

By MARIA GODOY@npr.org

Little Consolation for Central Java's Rain-Starved Farmers

A villager traversing a dry dam that came about as a result of a long drought period in the Bojonegoro district of Indonesia's East Java province earlier this month. Asia's channelling of 82 percent of its water for food production is not the only startling statistic. Consider another astonishing figure: almost 74 percent of the total global fresh water used for agriculture is in Asia alone.

The rain hasn’t fallen here in three months,” says Sofyan Ansori, sweeping his arm over a vast expanse of dried-out rice fields. 

“The irrigation canals have been dry for almost as long, and the rice crops aren’t getting enough water. Even the rivers have gone dry.” 

Sofyan, the head of Tabah Terunjam village in Central Bengkulu district, says the crop is already two months old and just a few weeks away from harvest. 

But that won’t happen this year. 

“The drought has killed nearly the entire crop, so most of the farmers have just abandoned their fields,” he says. 

Forty-five hectares of rice paddies across the village have been destroyed by the long dry season. A few patches continue to grow, but will yield a negligible amount of the grain — assuming the rains begin sometime in the next few days, Sofyan points out. 

Nasron, a farmer, has already begun clearing the dead rice stalks from his fields in preparation for sowing a new crop with the advent of the rainy season. 

“There would be no point in planting anything now because there’s still no water in the irrigation canal,” he says. 

The district agriculture office has promised to give the farmers free seed crop to plant once the rains begin, and is currently gauging their losses to determine how much to distribute to each farmer. 

The offer is small consolation for the farmers in Tabah Terunjam, whose livelihoods depend on a successful harvest. 

But they are not the only ones affected by the unusually intense dry season this year. Farmers all over the country have seen their crops die before they can be harvested, as the aquifers and rivers feeding the irrigation canals run dry amid the lack of rain. 

In Sragen, Central Java, officials are calling on the central government to seed rain clouds to prevent the failure of at least 405 hectares of rice paddies. 

“We hope that the plan to induce artificial rain to fill up the empty reservoirs will be done soon because this is currently a crucial stage for the rice, which is 70 to 80 days old,” says Budiharjo, the head of the district agriculture office. 

“At this stage the crops need a lot of water, but there’s virtually no supply.” 

He warns that without any rains in the next two weeks, the amount of failed farmland in the area will expand rapidly. 

In neighboring Sukoharjo district, farmers are urging the company managing water supplies from the Bengawan Solo River not to cut off supplies for their irrigation network. 

Subari, one of the farmers calling on the district legislature to support their cause, says the water company is planning to shut down the water supply next month because of the dwindling water level in the river. 

He says that in Sukoharjo’s Weru subdistrict alone, 907 hectares of rice crop are dependent on the irrigation network. Some fields have already failed because of the decreasing amount of water. 

“Sixty hectares of rice paddies there have failed,” Subari says. 

The situation has become so dire that some farmers have taken extreme measures to highlight their plight. On Tuesday, farmers in Weru held three river water management officials hostage for two hours to demand answers on why their area was not getting any water. 

“We just want clarity on the issue,” said Sugeng Darmawan, the head of the local farmers’ association. 

“Will Weru get any water, yes or no? The farmers are really worked up about this because they stand to lose their crops if there’s still no water.” 

The standoff was resolved after district legislators got the water company to promise to increase their supply to the farmers from the Colo Barat Dam. 

However, the solution may be too little, too late. The company said it could only provide water at a rate of 5 cubic meters per second, less than the 7 cubic meters per second that the farmers wanted. 

In addition, the supply will only be available until the end of the month, after which it will be throttled down again. 


thejakartaglobe.com

Florida: Water Managers Appeal to Gov. Scott: Restore Money for Water Protection

Twenty former governing board members of Florida’s water management districts are urging Gov. Rick Scott to reverse another round of pending budget cuts.

In a letter sent to Scott Monday, they urged the governor to “restore adequate funding’’ for the five regional agencies responsible for the water supply, flood control and many environmental protection projects, including Everglades restoration.

The Florida Legislature this year removed a year-old revenue cap that had slashed district budgets statewide by 30 percent, a move environmental groups had hoped would restore some of the lost funding. Instead, water district governing boards, who are appointed by the governor, have continued cutting back, rather than holding the line or raising property tax rates to previous levels.

The South Florida Water Management District, for example, which just settled a long-running federal lawsuit by agreeing to $880 million in new projects to reduce the flow of pollution in the Everglades, gave preliminary approval to a $600 million budget that includes another 2 percent cut in its property tax rate. That follows a $100 million cut last year. A final budget hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25.

The former board members, including Miami attorney Eric Buermann, who was the South Florida district’s chairman under former Gov. Charlie Crist, argued the cuts save property owners a small amount at a large cost for important programs like Glades restoration, and alternative water supply projects. A Miami-Dade property owner of a $150,000 home paid $62.40 in district taxes in 2011. This latest proposed roll-back will reduce that to $42.89.

The governor’s office did not respond to a call and an email for comment about the letter, which echoes complaints from environmental groups. But in announcing final state approval last week of the Everglades pollution cleanup plan reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Scott said the plan was to pay for the work with existing state and district revenues “without raising or creating new costs for Floridians.’’

miamiherald.com

California's Water Belongs to All of Us

                   The Rio Vista Bridge spans the Sacramento River in the delta, an area that’s vital to the economy and environment.

It doesn't make headlines or lead the evening news. You won't see it on a bumper sticker or splashed on a billboard. But right now, in communities all over the state, people are working together to resolve one of California's biggest challenges: our water future.

As leaders of two local water agencies — one in Southern California and one in Northern California — we see signs of that cooperation every day. Water agencies from Siskiyou County to San Diego are advancing local projects to upgrade pipelines and reservoirs. On a regular basis, they are joining forces at the regional level to plan and construct water recycling facilities and treatment plants, invest in conservation and protect water quality.

And the collaboration does not end there. As leaders of the state's largest water association, we see water managers from every region of the state working to resolve long-term water supply and ecosystem problems in the Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta — an area vital to our economy and environment.

Whether your community is blessed with abundant local water supplies or situated at the end of a long aqueduct, we care about the same thing: a secure water supply system. That means looking decades into the future and taking steps now to ensure a reliable water supply system.

The record shows that Californians have been making steady progress. Water managers are working to stretch every drop, diversify their water supply sources, protect water quality and plan for uncertainties in a changing climate. But there is more to be done, particularly when it comes to improving the statewide system of pipelines, canals and reservoirs that allows us to capture water for use in dry times.

That system has allowed us to prosper, but it needs to be modernized to improve water supply delivery and reduce environmental impacts.

This is where a statewide perspective is critical. Resolving long-term water supply and ecosystem problems in the delta is not a matter of one region vs. another. It's about recognizing that the status quo is not working for the state as a whole and finding solutions that work for all Californians.

We can't perpetuate the notion that our natural resources "belong" to a particular region, or that one region's economy or quality of life is more deserving of water than another's. We cannot be satisfied with actions that shift the problem from one region to another or that preserve the status quo.

In our state's long and colorful water history, the most significant and lasting progress has been made when leaders articulate a broader vision and encourage others to look for mutually beneficial solutions, compromise where necessary and act in the best interest of the state as a whole.

That must happen again if we are to succeed today. The Brown administration has made a firm commitment to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a collaborative process to develop a long-term solution to the delta's water reliability and ecosystem problems. Though specific elements of the plan are still being refined and studied, the process is stressing the need for comprehensive approaches that put the needs of the entire state first. That is good.

Members of the Association of California Water Agencies have long called for such an approach. We have also identified principles that must be part of any delta solution to protect, and where possible advance, the interests of all Californians.

These include protecting delta interests and respecting existing water rights, including those of water users upstream of the delta. We must also develop local surface and groundwater storage projects and other programs to assure that all regions of the state have adequate water supply security. Water use efficiency and other local strategies that maximize water supply reliability must also be pursued.

True solutions to our biggest problems come when we act as one state. It's time to move on solutions that improve water supply security for the entire state.

By Randy Record and John Coleman@modbee.com

Be sure to watch the whole documentary and visit the Links at the end of the video to support all our farmers and help save our agriculture that feeds the state! Send this video to everyone you know or think you may know that is affected by this problem (which is everyone! Everyone who eats anything here in California or buys food from the grocery store.) This is a serious problem and it's happening NOW, the longer we wait to stand up to this situation the faster our fertile farmland will dry up and blow away!

Wind Turbine Turns Airborne Moisture into Drinking Water

With wind power companies still trying to convince the sceptics of their benefits, we’ve seen forward-thinking innovators looking even further into the future, with airborne windmills and small scale wind farming. Taking a different approach, France’s Eole Water has now created a turbine that can condense water in the air and make it safe for drinking.

Aside from the obvious environmental benefits a wind turbine offers, the company’s WMS1000 includes a fan that sucks in passing air as well as a cooling compressor in the generator compartment, which condensates passing airborne moisture. The water is then collected, filtered to World Health Organization drinking standards and delivered through a tap at the bottom of the turbine. According to Eole Water, the turbine can produce up to 1,000 liters a day. For communities situated in regions with few or low quality water supplies, the turbine could prove to be a vital resource. The following video demonstrates how the turbine works:

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Tackling both environmental and social issues, the turbine has been in production for the past few years and has finally been delivered to Abu Dhabi to undergo testing in extreme weather conditions. If this is successful, perhaps Eole Water is a startup worth investing in?


springwise.com

AQUASTAT

The AQUASTAT database provides information on water and agriculture by countries in the following main categories:

-   Land use and population  -   Climate and water resources  -   Water use, by sector and by source  -   Irrigation and drainage development  -   Environment and health

The AQUASTAT database can be queried on-line and the query results can be downloaded in CSV format. The current database regroups data per 5-year period and shows for each variable the value for the most recent year during that period, if available. For example, if for the period 1998-2002 data are available for the year 1999 and for the year 2001, then the value for the year 2001 is shown. It should be noted however that for most variables no time series can be made available yet, due to lack of sufficient data. AQuestionnaire and Guidelines have been prepared for the updating of the data and country profiles.

AQUASTAT online database

View the database symbols!

In the online database a search can be done both by country and by region. The Regions File shows what countries belong to what region.

If you have any suggestions regarding the data or the user interface, please send your feedback to: AQUASTAT@fao.org.

Time series on AQUASTAT variable [4313] on irrigation can be found underFAOSTAT land resources by choosing the item "Total area equipped for irrigation". For other time-series related to food and agriculture see FAOSTAT home page.

Data Quality

AQUASTAT is committed to maximizing the quality and international comparability of the data in its main country database. In order to be able to correctly interpret the information provided by countries, AQUASTAT is using questionnaires and holding workshops to clarify some of the more complex data concepts. Materials related to one of the workshops can be found here.

aquastat

Access to Clean Water Promotes a Ripple Effect Infographic: Voss Foundation

I really like this infographic from the Voss Foundation 

@waterwired

Bali Looks To Ways To Save Water

As nations are looking to become water-efficient, some Indonesian famers may have an answer.

They are hoping UNESCO heritage status will help preserve their eleven-centuries-old Subak irrigation technique.

Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reports from the island of Bali.

Food Shortages Could Force World into Vegetarianism

Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.

Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists.

"There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.

"There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a … reliable system of food trade."

Dire warnings of water scarcity limiting food production come as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for staples such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June, triggered by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel.

Oxfam has forecast that the price spike will have a devastating impact in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages in 2008 led to civil unrest in 28 countries.

Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world's arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include eliminating waste and increasing trade between countries in food surplus and those in deficit.

"Nine hundred million people already go hungry and 2 billion people are malnourished in spite of the fact that per capita food production continues to increase," they said. "With 70% of all available water being in agriculture, growing more food to feed an additional 2 billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on available water and land."

The report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN bodies, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to address global water supply problems.

Competition for water between food production and other uses will intensify pressure on essential resources, the scientists said. "The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will place additional pressure on our already stressed water resources, at a time when we also need to allocate more water to satisfy global energy demand – which is expected to rise 60% over the coming 30 years – and to generate electricity for the 1.3 billion people currently without it," said the report.

Overeating, undernourishment and waste are all on the rise and increased food production may face future constraints from water scarcity.

"We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future," said the report's editor, Anders Jägerskog.

A separate report from the International Water Management Institute(IWMI) said the best way for countries to protect millions of farmers from food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia was to help them invest in small pumps and simple technology, rather than to develop expensive, large-scale irrigation projects.

"We've witnessed again and again what happens to the world's poor – the majority of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and already suffer from water scarcity – when they are at the mercy of our fragile global food system," said Dr Colin Chartres, the director general.

"Farmers across the developing world are increasingly relying on and benefiting from small-scale, locally-relevant water solutions. [These] techniques could increase yields up to 300% and add tens of billions of US dollars to household revenues across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia."

By John Vidal@guardian.co.uk/global-development

Access to Water Resources Key for Food Security

Recurring droughts highlight need to better manage water resources and safeguard food security. Ongoing worldwide drought has hurt global grain production and contributed to food price spikes every other year since 2007.

One of the key messages that FAO is transmitting this week at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden is that water use and water waste must be used wise throughout the entire food chain. World Water Week is the annual event which brings policy makers and experts from around the globe together to discuss pressing issues related to water and its management.

FAO’s recent report,The State of Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture, warns that water scarcity and pollution are posing a growing risk to key food production systems around the world.

“Agriculture, as we practice it today, is one of the causes of this phenomenon, as it represents 70% of all freshwater uses.” Jose Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General (whole statement)

Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater by far – about 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to irrigated agriculture. Today, irrigated agriculture covers 275 million hectares – about 20% of cultivated land – and accounts for 40% of global food production. With rapid population growth, water withdrawals have tripled over the last 50 years.

Flood irrigation in India. More efficient use of water for agriculture is key to protecting and conserving water supplies.(Credit: Jeremy Hinsdale)

To meet the world’s growing demand for food, people need to produce in a way that conserves water, use it more sustainably and intelligently, and helps agriculture adapt to climate change.

Reducing food wastage by 50% – including post-harvest losses, losses in transport and handling, and losses in the household – might vastly reduce or even negate the need for additional water to grow more food, which will ensure sufficient water is available for food in the future.

As irrigation systems come under pressure to produce more with less water, there is a danger that unequal rights and entitlements will widen inequalities. Irrigation is very important for overall food production by enabling 40% of the production on only 17% of the cropland.

© Water Footprint Network

Toward that end, FAO is proposing a new framework for water management in agriculture: Coping with water scarcity: An action framework for agriculture and food security.

New framework for water management in agriculture

Toward that end, FAO is proposing a new framework for water management in agriculture: Coping with water scarcity: An action framework for agriculture and food security.

FAO’s framework stresses in particular the importance of the following areas where policy and action should focus:

Modernisation of irrigation: age-old canal irrigation schemes need to be modernized to respond to the needs of tomorrow’s farmers, allow for the more efficient use of water and increase productivity. Future irrigation will increasingly be piped irrigation and combine different sources of water, including groundwater, in a sustainable way.

Better storage of rainwater at farm level: by storing water in small ponds or directly in the ground, farmers can reduce drought-related risks and increase productivity.

Recycling and re-using: water re-use, in particular treated wastewater from urban centers, can play an important role for agricultural production in arid areas. A more systematic way of safely using such water can boost local production.

Pollution control: better water quality regulations, together with effective enforcement mechanisms, needs to be put in place to reduce water pollution, which aggravates water scarcity.

Substitution and reduction of food waste: agricultural policies must consider the potential that rainfed production still offers in many places, and seek a much more integrated combination of irrigated and rainfed farming.

Irrigated fields Kufra in Sahara (Credit: InformedFarmer)

At the same time, the reduction of post-harvest losses must be part of any water scarcity coping strategy. Of all food produced globally, 30 percent – the equivalent of 1.3 billion tons - is lost or wasted every year along the value chain from field to fork. Reducing these losses go a long way towards reducing pressuring on natural resources that are essential to food production, like soils and water.

A finite resource, pushed to the brink: how water scarcity impacts food security
Climate change will place additional pressure on availability of water for food production

Seametrics Infographic Sheds Light On How Much Water Is Used In Agriculture

Water Development and Management Unit

UN Water’s statistics page

WE MUST KNOW THIS:

The world’s water crisis is not related to the physical availability of water, but to unbalanced power relations, poverty and related inequalities. 

By CHILLYMANJARO@thewatchers.adorraeli.com

North Korea May Be Facing New Food Crisis

North Korea could be heading towards a crisis similar to the 1990s when a million people are thought to have died after a series of natural disasters brought widespread famine, said an aid worker, just back from a tour of the impoverished state.

North Korea has suffered heavy floods this year, including from a typhoon earlier this week and another storm heading in its way, and has little capacity to deal with any more damage, said Kim Hartzner, managing director of Mission East, a Danish aid group which focuses on providing food aid to children.

"The scale and the magnitude of the disaster has been mind-blowing," he told Reuters in Beijing late on Wednesday, referring to flooding in late June and the end of July that killed at least 169, leaving some 400 people missing and 212,200 homeless.

"They've been through five or six consecutive disasters. It is a long-term problem and the supplies are likely to be very low," he said, adding there was a lack of even basic materials for rebuilding homes, such as concrete and iron bars.

"The damage to the arable land will not have an effect tomorrow or the day after; it will have an effect in two or three months. They can eat the maize they have already harvested," Hartzner added.

"But I think this will affect a sizable proportion of the maize. It is extremely serious if the maize and rice crops are damaged," he said, after returning from a six-day visit where he visited several areas hard-hit by the recent floods.

It was Hartzner's fourth trip to the country since last year when Mission East first gained access to North Korea.

A famine in the 1990s killed an estimated million people and North Korea has continued to endure chronic food shortages, which many experts say reflect systemic failings in the reclusive country's heavily centralized economic system, which has sapped farmers' productivity.

Since then, North Korea's agricultural sector has become increasingly vulnerable to floods and drought as a result of widespread deforestation.

While a United Nations official said earlier this month that the country was a long way from the famine levels seen in the 1990s, Hartzner said he was more worried.

"I think the chances are increasing that we're getting to a situation which could have similarities to the crisis in the 1990s. Definitely people are dying. How many is the big question which I simply cannot answer," he said.

Hartzner described conditions in three orphanages he visited in South Hwanghae province as awful.

"There the conditions are beyond comprehension; 70 percent of the children are suffering from acute malnutrition, either severely or moderately," he said.

U.N. and some other agencies say access to North Korea has improved during the most recent flooding, indicating the country wants to ease its traditional isolation at least temporarily.

Still, it remains one of the world's most reclusive states, even after young leader Kim Jong-un inherited dynastic power from his father Kim Jong-il, who died in December.

"I am very encouraged by their openness, by their willingness to share information," Hartzner said of his interaction with government officials.

reuters.com

North Koreans are fleeing across the border into neighboring China seeking food, medicine, money and even freedom. There are estimated to be up to 50,000 North Korean refugees hiding in China today. Leaving the country without permission is punishable by harsh treatment, detention, imprisonment, torture, and even execution for those who are forcibly returned. As a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, China has international obligations to protect refugees. Despite this, the Chinese authorities actively seek North Korean refugees out and send them back, fully aware of the consequences they will face. 

In response to this, we launched our rescue program in 2010, and our initial goal was to rescue 100 North Korean refugees. As of July 2012, we have successfully accomplished this goal thanks to the support of thousands of people all around the world. We aren't stopping either. We hope to rescue hundreds more with your continued support!