Press Release, March, 2000
Scientists and Farmers Create Improved Crops for a Water-Scarce WorldContact Person:Sarwat Hussain (202) 473-5690
WASHINGTON, March 20, 2000-Farmers and scientists are developing "miracle rice," "hardy corn" and other innovative crops to help the 2.7 billion people who will be living in water-scarce regions by the year 2025, says the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
CGIAR scientists have also helped to create a new user-friendly database called World Water and Climate Atlas for Agriculture that will serve as a high-tech tool for managing water resources for farmers, agronomists, engineers, conservationists, meteorologists, researchers and government policy makers.
"The world is facing a deadly water gap: some 20 percent more water is needed than is available to feed the nearly 3 billion additional people who will be alive by 2025, and there is no way to manufacture new water," says Ismail Serageldin, CGIAR Chairman, as well as World Bank Vice President for Special Programs. "Crops that are improved to flourish in low-water environments, together with this powerful new tool, the Water and Climate Atlas, make up one key component in an overall global water strategy."
Serageldin is also Chairman of the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century, which was formed to call public attention to the water crisis and to find solutions. The World Commission will present its report on a vision for the future of global water resources and their management at the ongoing Second World Water Forum, March 17-22, 2000 in The Hague, the Netherlands.
The innovations that CGIAR is developing to help a water-short world include:
Hardy Corn: Researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known as CIMMYT, one of 16 CGIAR centers, have created hardy new breeds of tropical corn that can increase harvests by 40 percent in the tough environments of the developing world.
One of the new corn varieties was specifically developed to grow under drought conditions, with a much higher yield than traditional corn gives in the same conditions. Drought caused the loss of an estimated 24 million tons of corn in 1993 in the developing world, a drop of 15 percent from the potential crop without any drought. The new corn will also help the environment by allowing farmers in the developing world to stay on what was becoming non-productive lands, thereby saving virgin rain forests and other fragile tropical lands.
Miracle Rice: New, water-saving techniques are being developed that could save up to 25 percent of the water now used to grow rice, according to scientists at two CGIAR centers -- the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), based in Manila, the Philippines, and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The link between water and rice is crucial, especially since fresh water is a scarce resource that is getting scarcer. The number of water-scarce countries is expected to increase to 48 countries by 2025, peaking at 55 countries by mid-century, 2050. More than half of the world's population will depend on rice as their principal food source in 30 years. Rice production must increase by more than 40 percent from the present production to avoid a rice shortage. But available land for cultivation is expected to decrease because of erosion, desertification, salinization, and rapidly increasing urbanization.
Durable Wheat: Researchers have been able to modify wheat, once mostly restricted to temperate and subtropical zones, to make it productive even in hot climates. One main reason for growing wheat is it requires less water than rice. Wheat is also a cash crop that has relatively few natural insect enemies. Thanks to years of intensive plant breeding work, modern wheats now have strong built-in resistance to major diseases. That means poor farmers in developing countries are assured of stable yields and can more easily adapt pest management procedures that make maximum use of biological control measures, minimizing chemical use.
The World Water and Climate Atlas for Agriculture: Scientists at another CGIAR center, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), along with Utah State University, have created a new database that will serve as a high-tech tool for farmers, agronomists, engineers, conservationists, meteorologists, researchers and government policy makers.
The Atlas integrates the available agricultural climate data into one computer program and represents the most comprehensive, quality-controlled climatic data set in existence, enabling users for the first time to zoom in on any 1-square mile (2.5 sq. kilometers) region of the globe and extract critical data such as precipitation and probability of precipitation, maximum and minimum temperatures and average temperatures.
All of this data is converted into maps that clearly delineate climatic conditions, no matter how remote an area of land may be, in a user-friendly computer program that agronomists can use to assist even the poorest farmers. The Atlas will help identify the agro-climatic conditions appropriate for specific crops.
The Atlas will serve the interests of small and poor farmers in at least three ways:
· International funding agencies, along with national and local governments, will have a much clearer picture of how to direct increasingly scarce agricultural investments resources;
· Extension agents can print and distribute data generated by the Atlas for specific areas to help improve the performance of water resource and irrigation systems, ultimately leading to improved crop production by poor and small-scale farmers;
· By helping poor farmers to increase their incomes, the Atlas would help to better preserve the Earth's environment -- where too many people are poor, hungry or unemployed, preservation of nature, forests and wildlife will deteriorate.
The Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research is a global agricultural research network that works to promote food security, poverty eradication and the sound management of natural resources in the developing world. (www.cgiar.org)
Future Harvest builds public understanding of the importance of international agricultural research to global peace, prosperity, environmental renewal, health, and alleviation of human suffering. (www.futureharvest.org)
