Droughts threaten world food supply

As the United States bakes in one of the hottest summers since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, droughts reaching from the Dakotas to Arizona have sharpened the focus of farmers on their lifeline water.

Farmers from Nebraska to northern Texas are now growing more water-thirsty crops, like corn, that offer them better cash returns thanks to changing trends such as the boom in ethanol and biodiesel fuels.

That is only accelerating the depletion of ground water to levels faster than can be replenished by rain. In some cases, farm land is already being left fallow to conserve water.
“My sense in looking at these issues for 20 years, we’re going to need at least a doubling of water productivity in agriculture if we’re going to have an opportunity to meet food demand in a way that is somewhat environmentally sustainable,” said Sandra Postel of the Global Water Policy Project, a group in Amherst, Massachusetts, that analyzes water policies.

Not just a problem for US

Experts say water scarcity will be a growing dilemma for world farmers. Most projections put the world population at about 8 billion people by 2025, or another 2 billion mouths to feed.

People/s Daily