Volume 13, Number 49: 8 December 2010
Every now and then, various astute observers of man's precarious position on planet earth call our attention to a developing global crisis that seems destined to wreak havoc on the human race a mere forty years from now: a lack of sufficient land and freshwater resources to produce the food that will be required to sustain our growing population. The most recent of this community of researchers to address the approaching problem are Hanjra and Qureshi (2010), who begin their treatment of the subject by quoting Benjamin Franklin's well-known homily: "when the well is dry, we know the worth of water."
"Food policy," as the two Australian researchers write, "must not lose sight of surging water scarcity." Stating that "population and income growth will increase the demand for food and water," they indicate that "irrigation will be the first sector to lose water, as water competition by non-agricultural uses increases and water scarcity intensifies." And noting that "increasing water scarcity will have implications for food security, hunger, poverty, and ecosystem health and services," they report that "feeding the 2050 population will require some 12,400 km3 of water, up from 6800 km3 used today." This huge increase, in their words, "will leave a water gap of about 3300 km3 even after improving efficiency in irrigated agriculture, improving water management, and upgrading of rainfed agriculture," as per the findings of de Fraiture et al. (2007), Molden (2007) and Molden et al. (2010).
This water deficiency, according to Hanjra and Qureshi, "will lead to a food gap unless concerted actions are taken today." Some of the things they propose, in this regard, are to conserve water and energy resources, develop and adopt climate-resilient crop varieties, modernize irrigation, shore up domestic food supplies, reengage in agriculture for further development, and reform the global food and trade market. And to achieve these goals, they say that "unprecedented global cooperation is required," which by the looks of today's world is an even more remote possibility than that implied by the proverbial wishful thinking. So, on top of everything else they suggest (a goodly portion of which will not be achieved), what can we do to defuse the ticking time-bomb that is the looming food and water crisis?
We suggest doing nothing. But not just any "nothing." The nothing we suggest is to not mess with the normal, unforced evolution of civilization's means of acquiring energy. We suggest this, because on top of everything else we may try to do to conserve both land and freshwater resources, we will still fall short of what is needed to be achieved unless the air's CO2 content rises significantly and thereby boosts the water use efficiency of earth's crop plants, as well as that of the plants that provide food and habitat for what could be called "wild nature," enabling both sets of plants to produce more biomass per unit of water used in the process. And to ensure that this happens, we will need all of the CO2 that will be produced by the burning of fossil fuels, until other forms of energy truly become more cost-efficient than coal, gas and oil. In fact, these other energy sources will have to become much more cost-efficient before fossil fuels are phased out; because the positive externality of the CO2-induced increase in plant water use efficiency provided by the steady rise in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration due to the burning of fossil fuels will be providing a most important service in helping us feed and sustain our own species without totally decimating what yet remains of wild nature.
For more on this extremely important but under-appreciated subject, see several of the early and later items archived under the heading of Food in our Subject Index.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
References
de Fraiture, C., Wichelns, D., Rockstrom, J., Kemp-Benedict, E., Eriyagama, N., Gordon, L.J., Hanjra, M.A., Hoogeveen, J., Huber-Lee, A. and Karlberg, L. 2007. Looking ahead to 2050: scenarios of alternative investment approaches. In: Molden, D. (Ed.), Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management. London: Earthscan, and Colombo, International Water Management Institute, pp. 91-145.
Hanjra, M.A. and Qureshi, M.E. 2010. Global water crisis and future food security in an era of climate change. Food Policy 35: 365-377.
Molden, D. 2007. Water responses to urbanization. Paddy and Water Environment 5: 207-209.
Molden, D., Oweis, T., Steduto, P., Bindraban, P., Hanjra, M.A. and Kijne, J. 2010. Improving agricultural water productivity: between optimism and caution. Agricultural Water Management 97: 528-535.