Agri production will have to be greatly intensified: FAO

FE Report Agricultural production will have to be intensified rather than expanded as in another 40 years ( by 2050) many parts of the world will be running out of water for farming, a UN Food and Agriculture Organization report said. "It is now estimated that more than 40 per cent of the world's rural population lives in river basins that are physically water scarce," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report said, which looked at land and water from a food security perspective. "It is alarming concerning the 75 per cent of the population in developing countries who are poor, live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for income and food", the report said. The report, based on the planet's land and water resources, revealed plenty of bad news for the globe. It said, "To feed a burgeoning global population, estimated to hit nine billion by 2050, we will have to produce another one billion tonnes of cereals and 200 million extra tonnes of livestock products every year." "To do that we will need to increase agricultural water consumption by 10 per cent until 2050" Jean-Marc Faures, a water specialist with FAO told the international news agencies. The report pointed out that Irrigated rice-based systems in South-East and Eastern Asia, where Bangladesh belongs to, would face land abandonment, loss of buffer role of paddy land, increasing cost of land conservation, health hazards due to pollution and loss of cultural values of land. Another fear for Bangladesh and her counterparts in Indo-Gangetic plains is, the report showed, "Increased water scarcity, loss of biodiversity and environmental services, desertification, expected reduction in water availability and shift in seasonal flows due to climate change in several places". Groundwater-dependent irrigation systems in interior arid plains in India, China, central USA, Australia, northern Africa, Middle East and other areas would also face loss of buffer role of aquifers, loss of agricultural land, desertification, reduced recharge of aquifers due to climate change. Showing risk of hugely dependence on chemical fertilizer the report said, "In countries like Bangladesh and China, where fertilizer is heavily subsidized, application rates tend to be higher than recommended, resulting in overuse." Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) executive chairman Dr Wais Kabir told the FE that the country has to be appropriated with modern and sustainable agricultural methodology to face the challenge of the climate change. He said, "More and more research are needed to develop crop varieties friendly to the changing climate and environment parallel to it they contain sustainability and could increase crop intensity." Dr Kabir also emphasised preparation and planning of the nation to adapt with climate change.