In the northern region of India called Gujarat State,
unsustainable agricultural and irrigation practices are placing a heavy strain
on both energy resources and water supply. Despite there being a dry, arid
period between June and September, farmers have managed to keep their lands wet
and green due to increased access to irrigation technologies. While these
"improvements" may seem to be wholly beneficial at first, they are
actually causing major environmental problems.
First and
foremost, with the ever increasing world population, there is a consequent
increase in demand for food. In fact, it is estimated that if current eating
habits continue, agricultural production will need to increase by at least 70%
by 2050 to sustain our population. In addition to generating more food, our
sources of primary energy will also need to double by 2035 in order to support
this dramatic increase in production. It is plain to see by these startling
statistics that there is a dire need for a sustainable method of farming to be
implemented which both reduces energy costs and can withstand a great spike in overall
food production. It is clear that our current methods are not up to the task of
long term sustainability.
Additionally, the prevalent use of groundwater in irrigation
systems is rapidly depleting the water supply of India. The use of groundwater
increased 25-fold between 1970 and 2009. This pattern of water use is pushing
India and other agricultural groundwater “hotspots” toward collapse. It is
simply impossible to sustain this level of resource use for an extended period
of time. The unequal distribution of resources throughout the world is partly
to blame as well as the issue of overpopulation. India is a densely populated
country and it is necessary for the country to be able to provide for its
people. However, new methods are urgently needed to avoid the failure of local
farms and depletion of limited natural resources. Are there any viable
solutions which would both increase food production and reduce water loss? What
other aspects of society might need to be “remodeled” in order to alleviate the
agricultural stress placed on these countries?
This is a really interesting conundrum, which ties really well into my previous blog article as well. The populations of both the planet and India are growing, and once again a lot of people are not looking at the long-term effects of this population growth. Food takes water, and so do all endeavors most people participate in on a daily basis. Didn't someone blog about how much water it takes to make the supplies for, construct, and ship a cotton t-shirt? India is both an agricultural and industrial nation, and therefore a large quantity of water is needed simply to fuel the nation's economy.
ReplyDeleteBut how do we feed everyone when water--especially fresh water--is a very limited resource? How do we justify what goes where and who gets water and who doesn't? This is an incredibly tough issue because there really is no correct answer. I would say that the closest answer we have is to convince people to cut back on consumption: both material and nutritional. I'm not inferring that the world needs to starve, but I think that if more people--especially in our country--focused on eating local, sustainable, foods more for the purpose of nutritional intake and less for the purpose of alleviating boredom then we could at least decrease the demand some places face.
India, however, still has to feed billions of people on a limited water supply. I realize that they are attempting to solve this problem by diverting different rivers around in order to bring water to those places most desperate. But this is exacerbating a problem, not fixing it, and the downstream areas are soon going to understand the magnitude of attempting to alter natural systems. Perhaps science will one day discover the key to more drought resistant crops (which would definitely be more helpful in solving the problem). But in the mean time, every nation needs to asses their consumption and their supply and we need to figure out how we can change both our habits and our trade routes to slow down the rapid rate of water loss.
This problem in India reflects the global issue of balancing water consumption across many different sectors such as agriculture, human consumption, aesthetics, spirituality, etc. The questions are many: who decides the appropriate level of water consumption across all of these sectors, how much should be set aside for each sector, which nations should have access, etc. One of the main problems with water use in agriculture is that a large portion of the water is lost to evaporation before it reaches the crops when it is pumped from underground and sprayed. This problem in India is reflected in the problem we are having in the U.S. with the depletion rate of the Ogallala Aquifer that spans across central America. It is currently being drained much faster than it is being replenished. This trend is mirrored in India. The U.S. currently depends on this aquifer for food production to millions of people, how can we end this trend? In the U.S. the answer seems to be somewhat attainable when you consider the vast amounts of water that are simply wasted in the majority of agribusiness because of the large-scale nature of the industry. Sand-n-sun points out this problem can somewhat be mitigated through small-scale farming and more sustainable, diverse crop yields because the water run-off and loss to evaporation is far less.
ReplyDeletehttp://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/aquifers-depletion-poses-sweeping-threat/