Waterworld |
It takes 5000 litres of water to
produce 1 kg of rice!
In an age where rapidly growing populations
are competing for limited
supplies of water, it remains to be seen how long Asia can sustain growth in rice
production in the 21st century with that kind of ratio. |
The second World Social
Forum in Porto Alegre in Brazil in 2002 opened under the theme of "Another world is
possible". Delegates exchanged views on alternatives and solutions with each other. A
group from Brazil adopted organic rice growing techniques from China. Using this method, in the same pond, fish and
rice can be symbiotic, eliminating the need for fertilizers and additional ponds. |
The Many Labours of Rice
More than 1 billion people in the world make their living
from rice. That's because rice farming isn't as simple as sowing the seed and growing it
normally.
First, rice seed is sown onto a carefully prepared
starter bed. Then the rice field is manured, flooded and ploughed. When the seedlings gain
a certain height, they are transplanted from the bed to field by hand. A single
experienced farmer will take 3 days to transplant one acre, though this is always done by
many people working together.
Then the field is hand-weeded and flooded. The field has
to remain flooded for 3-6 months. Harvesting is done by hand. Then the rice has to be
threshed (the grains are separated from the stalk) and milled (that is, the husk is
removed).
More
than 1 billion people make their livelihood from rice |
Water, Water Everywhere
Rice is extremely labour-intensive, but it gives more employment than other crops, a boon
to the
Without flooded fields?!
Without pesticides?! Masanobu Fukuoka is the
pioneer of "natural farming", which could reverse the degenerative momentum of
modern agriculture. It requires no machines and no chemicals. He grows high-yielding crops
of rice simply by scattering seed onto an unplowed field!
From his book The One-Straw Revolution:
"The basic idea came to him one day as he happened to pass an old field which had
been left unused and unplowed for many years. There he saw healthy rice seedlings
sprouting through a tangle of grasses and weeds. From then on, he stopped flooding his
field in order to grow rice. He stopped sowing rice seed in spring and, instead, put the
seed out in the autumn, sowing it directly onto the surface of the field when it would
naturally have fallen to the ground. Instead of plowing the soil to get rid of weeds, he
learned to control them by a more or less permanent ground cover of white clover and a
mulch of rice and barley straw. Once he has seen to it that conditions have been tilted in
favour of crops, Mr Fukuoka interferes as little as possible with in his fields." |
over-populated regions of Asia. However, the major cause
of concern is that rice is a water-guzzler. With the amount of water needed for one acre
of rice, you could irrigate 3 acres of wheat and 5 acres of vegetables. More than 80 per
cent of rice lands in the world are rain fed and grow only one crop a year. So, if the
rains fail, even that crop is gone.
And how much water can be diverted for rice irrigation at a time when fresh water is
running short for human consumption? Already around Beijing, farmers are not allowed to
grow rice in flooded fields due to a shortage of water. If that is a taste of things to
come, then it's bad news for India.
Doing More With Less
In the future, rice production must grow to keep pace with
the growing population with better and more efficient use of water, land and labour. At
the same time, losses incurred during production, transportation and processing have to be
reduced.
One way to reduce the amount of water required for cultivation is by the development of
varieties called "aerobic rice", that are better suited for dry soils.
Scientists have been trying to develop, genetically, rice that would yield several times
the current types "almost anytime and anywhere in the torrid zone".
 |
With the
water needed for one acre
of rice, you
irrigate 5
acres of
vegetables. |
The concurrent use of rice-field water both for irrigation and aquaculture is
another good idea. Another basic, but unpopular measure would be to make farmers pay for
all the water they use in the rice-fields. That would encourage water conservation.
Schemes like this are already underway in China.
India exported 1,532,600 tonnes of rice in 2000. If that was equated with exporting
7663 billion litres of water, one would get a fair idea of the magnitude of the problem.
|
Rice fields covered 1.5 million square kms of land in 2002 |
|
