International   

Water woes traced to farm ethics

Irrigation systems urgently need attention to minimise waste, say experts

MEXICO CITY: Eliminating water waste and mismanagement on farms — rather than building dams or diverting rivers — would go far toward alleviating the world's water crisis, officials and activists gathered at an international forum here said.

Farming accounts for 70 per cent of the water consumed and a majority of its waste, said representatives of some of the 130 nations attending on Saturday the 4th World Water Forum to discuss water management around the globe.

Mismanagement of resources leads to a lack of safe drinking water for one-fifth of the world's population, the United Nations said in a report.

Farming crisis

In the developing world, the water crisis is almost totally defined in relation to agriculture, with constant images of drought-blasted fields, withered corn stalks and skinny cattle. With 525 million small farms in the world, farmers suffer the most from each problem discussed at the forum: poverty, disease, and the lack of sanitation and clean water.

``Farmers are central to the whole picture,'' said Patrick McCully, executive director of International River Network. ``They use the majority of the world's water, and farmers are where most of the world's poverty is concentrated.''

With 2.5 billion people living off the land, change is a daunting task.

``There are great problems with irrigation. We must convince our farmers to go to less extensive crops,'' said Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France. ``It's a question of changing the whole agricultural method.''

Traditionally, Governments have responded to the problems of small-scale farmers — defined as those with plots of 5 acres or less — by building big dam projects. But Mr. McCully says most small farms are so high up in the hills or removed from rivers that they cannot benefit from them. Irrigation systems urgently need attention, according to Ute Collier, of the World Wildlife Fund.

``We can't afford to waste water in irrigation systems that are 30 to 40 per cent efficient,'' he said. ``If we could get that part of the equation done, we could probably cut down the number of dams we're building by half, at least.''

Greater efficiency would free up money to help provide clean drinking water and food to small farmers who, despite raising food, constitute most of the 842 million people in the world who go hungry.

Participants in this forum have pledged to focus on the world's poor, many of whom live on less than 2 gallons of water per day — one-thirtieth of the daily usage in some developed nations. tendulMr. Collier's work has focused on improving irrigation for notoriously thirsty cash crops like cotton and sugarcane, though they are seldom grown on the smallest farms.

AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Seven die in Pakistan blast
Indian `curry' king in cash-for-peerage row
Ex-judge made Pakistan poll chief
Mortar attack on pilgrims
Call for repoll in Belarus
Book set to spark treasure hunt
Bush's approval at new low
Hamas unveils Cabinet
Water woes traced to farm ethics
Britain handled 73 CIA rendition flights
Dhaka hopes visit will be a "milestone"
"Islamabad will not accept discriminatory treatment"
CIS indologists to coordinate
Emirates to raise capacity to India this year
India takes stock of ties with West Asia

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu