Thank you. Thank you first of all for a very interesting presentation. I
really enjoyed it very much. You mentioned in passing about educatlon. And
it seemed to me that there is need for education at a number of levels, first
of all amon gst the farmlng population itself. but also amongst domestic users
and amongst industrial users, of course. And I just won-dcred if you are able
to tell us ab out any education programs that are occurring in diffcr-ent
countrics. Thank yo u.
C:hairman:
Thank you, third question? Yes, Philippines, please?
Question 3 (Hon. Oscar S. Rodriquez, MP, PHILIPPINES):
You mentioned, Professor, that there is an adverse effect in the buildlng
of ir rigation dams, Ilke limitlng, applying the balancing act theory. Which
is mor e advantageous, the building of dams for irrigation purposes, or the
non-buildi ng of dams?
Chairman:
Thank you. We have three questions, and the last one is from me, an extra
quest ion num-bcr four. You were talking about this balance of nutrition for
thc agri cultural production. Do you think there any other way to overcome
this besides water? For cxample, I was told that we have dolomite for Indonesia
that can hel p to increase the rice production by twenty percent. In how far
thls Is true? S o we have four questlons, so I hope that Dr. Vo-Tong can answcr
these together, thank you.
Dr. Xuan:
Thank you very much for these questions, and I would like to first discuss
the questions trom the dlstinguished delegate from India. Yes, you are right,
that for the developing countrics the ties between agriculture, urbanlzation
and ind ustrializatlon have to be con-sidered in the light of population development.
O f course, if we have a very rapid popula-tion increase, especially a mechanical
increase in the urban areas, then urbanization will take place very fast,
and in that the water use for urbanization will have to be diverted from agricultur
e. It is the same with industrialization. Your first question is, what is
the m ost efflcient water management system for agriculture in developing
countries, is that rlght? Yes, you are right, drip irrigation would be very
expensive. Usu ally it's good ibr well-to-do farmers, especially farmers like
the ones in Isra el. They can afford to drip irri-gnte thcir orange orchards
on the desert, beca use they have a big market in Europe which can sell their
oranges at a very hig h price. So they can afford drip irrigation. But for
us, the Asian farmers, usu ally drip irrigation is out of the picture.
