"Sustainable Agricultural Development and Water Resources"
by
Prof. Vo-Tong Xuan, Dr. in Agriculture (Kyushu University)
M.P., National Assembly of Vietnam
Director, Farming Systems R&D Institute
Cantho University, Cantho, Vietnam
Chairman
Hon. Senator lbrahim Ali (MALAYSIA)
1. THE SETTING
Despite remarkable improvement in living conditions of the poor accompanied
by better health care, rising female literacy and the status of women, decreased
i nfant and maternal mortality rates, improved health, nutrition and livelihoods,
the Asian population is still growing at 1.8% per year and will double in
40 y ears as projected by the World Bank (BOS and Associates, 1994). In the
next 30 years, the Asia population will increase 41% (if excluding China,
this rate wil l be 51%) to reach a record 4,890 billion persons. The need
of providing opport unities for everyone of this population to access to food,
shelter, and clothin g will be a great challenge to agricultural development
in Asia. Under the cont emporary force of market economy, agricultural development
is affected not only by natural weather and climate, but even more by the
tendencies of diversifica tion that are deliberately chosen by farmers themselves
or by government-induce d incentives. In the meantime, as world population
continues to grow, poverty c ontinue to ride on the rural population while
increases in urban and industrial demand can be satisfied only by divert-ing
water from the very irrigation need ed to produce food and other agricultural
demands of that population (Brown, 19 96). As a result, the first victim of
the degraded environ-ment is likely our p lanet's water resources. It is a
great challenge to all of us, govern-ments and civil societies, to work toward
the most appropriate approach to save our wate r resources for sustaining
agricultural growth and at the same time supporting the compet-ing rate of
urbanization and industrialization. In this paper, I sha ll briefly discuss
the major factors that affect today's agricultural productio n of which the
most limiting factor -water resources- will be analyzed and asse ssed for
their uses in agriculture. Guidelines for better improvement of water resource
use will be suggested.
2. THE THREAT TO AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
During the last three decades, heavy investments in irrigation and advances
in agricultural technology helped keeping food production at a higher level
than p opulation growth. But it is almost universally recognized that the
rate of incr ease in food production is be-ing slowed down by various factors:
