Water for Food Conference
The second annual Water for Food conference was held at the Cornhusker Hotel, Lincoln, Neb., from the evening of May 2 through noon of May 5. Its focus, as last year, was to bring forth from researchers globally the best ideas to address the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing world population. Also it was to report on progress toward establishing an International Water for Food Institute in conjunction with the University of Nebraska. It was the general consensus of those attending in 2009 that such an Institute was needed, but the details and the possibility of such an institute becoming a reality were not entirely formulated. Since then, the moving of the State Fair from Lincoln to Grand Island and subsequent transfer of the old State Fair site to the university to be used as an Innovation Campus with its emphasis on food, water and energy made the institute a possibility. Then the Robert Daugherty Foundation made a very generous gift of $50,000,000 to the university to be used for further development of efficiencies in irrigation and water use. This gift has given the university the resources to implement the International Water for Food Institute framework. I will talk later about the concept of the institute and the possible benefits accruing to the state of Nebraska and the rest of the world.
This is not intended as a detailed report of the 2010 conference. That will be included in the proceedings that will be published by the university at a later date. This is the perception of the meeting from the viewpoint of a farmer who is interested in saving the water resources of Nebraska for future generations and moving the world toward providing enough food for a growing population for generations to come.
The speakers came from nearly every part of the world. If there was a common thread, it was that the world population will continue to grow at an ever increasing pace. The accepted estimate is that there will be nine billion people by 2050. The most mentioned increase in food needs was a doubling of food required by 2050. They all seemed to agree as well that there is only a finite amount of water on this globe that we all share as our habitat. Couple that with a lack of additional productive land to develop, in fact a generally declining amount of productive land for food production, and you have a recipe for disaster. Unless we find ways to produce, as put by Jeff Raikes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “more crop per drop” from this water and the arable land available, the result will be devastating for all parts of the world, including the United States.
Some of the speakers were very pessimistic about the ability of world food production to keep pace with the population growth, but others provided options that can help achieve the increased food production that is necessary. For example, in Malawi in sub-Saharan Africa, where it appeared that the average family there had about one hectare of land, at the most, research has shown that for approximately $150 invested in fertilizer and good seed, corn yields can be increased from an average of a half a ton per hectare (7.8 bushels per acre) to four tons per hectare (62.8 bushels per acre). This would provide a family with enough to live on plus some to market. Providing enough food for them through current assistance mechanisms would cost approximately $850. One big advantage, besides the economics, is that it produces much more food from nearly the same amount of water. Another advantage from the viewpoint of a Nebraska farmer is that it can allow a people who now spend all their time trying to provide food for their families to possibly acquire some income and increase the need for other products, which can indirectly lead to the need for more United States products. There were examples from other nations, including Sri Lanka, China and especially Australia, of practices that can increase the efficient use of our water, or produce more from each drop of water. Besides more efficient irrigation, the use of tillage practices that can produce more “crop” from each drop of water are available, and proven effective.
Along with the alarmist view that we are facing a disaster if we don’t find ways to get more crops from each drop of water to feed the ballooning world population, there were those who presented more optimistic appraisals of the possibility of food supplies keeping up with population growth. One of the most optimistic was Robert Fraley of Monsanto. He stated that it is not only possible but almost a certainty that, with the biological science involvement in development of crops that can yield more with less water and fewer nutrient inputs, we can meet world food needs for the foreseeable future. There were others who also gave examples of advances made in the past few years and the promise of more to come.
A very informative presentation was made by Dr. Sally Mackenzie, director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Plant Science Innovation. She outlined the advances already made and being used by farmers through the introduction of various genes that provide protection from insects, diseases and weeds into plants grown on our farms.
She pointed out that the pace of release of new plant characteristics through biotechnology is very slow because of the safety testing requirements imposed by EPA, FDA and USDA and the cost of those tests which must be born by whomever releases the new technology. She quickly pointed out that the safety to humans of the new technologies must be assured but suggested that there should be some way to reduce the cost and shorten the process through closer cooperation between universities, private industry and the federal agencies. Dr. Mackenzie pointed out that there is a lot of successful research that is laying on the shelves in university laboratories because the cost of the required testing is more than public institutions can gamble on the financial return that may accrue.
There was a panel of four farmers, or as they were referred to at the conference, “producers,” who gave information about their various methods of increasing yields using less water. They represented very different farming operations. The gentleman from Argentina, Martin Pasman, operates 20,000 hectares or 50,000 acres. Some of his land has excellent soil with excellent irrigation resources. Parts of his farm receive as much as 60 inches of rain per year. However, just as in Nebraska, the rain doesn’t always come when needed, so he uses irrigation on a large part of his land. It has been primarily converted to pivot irrigation. He plants a variety of crops ranging from corn to soybeans to wheat and other crops depending on the markets available and also to use as little water as possible, even though there is no current shortage of underground water. Some of his soil is very shallow, but he has managed to find crops that produce profitably on all of his soils. He uses no-till practices on all his land. Where the heavy rains fall, it prevents erosion, and where the rainfall is short, it helps retain enough moisture to boost yields over conventional tillage. It also reduces the amount of irrigation required when the rains fail to come when needed.
Keith Olsen from Perkins County, Nebraska, operates a totally dryland—or “rainfed” in the language of the researchers—farm. His annual rainfall is from 18 to 21 inches per year. He raises primarily wheat, soybeans and corn, using no-till, chemical fallow and skip-row practices to produce good yields no matter how much rainfall he receives. Besides helping to retain all the moisture that he receives, the cover provided prevents wind erosion, which was always a major problem when using conventional tillage and clean-tilled fallow practices.
Aaron Madison from Umatilla County, Oregon, farms 17,500 acres with his father, of which 7,500 acres are cropland that is deficit irrigated and the other 10,000 acres are native rangeland. Like the other farmers, they raise a variety of crops, depending upon the amount of water available and the markets. In their area, 14 miles from the Columbia River, they had allotments of water from the Columbia, but the state has now prohibited pumping from the Columbia when there is a need for water to maintain streamflows. Their deep-well pumping is also now restricted because of sharp declines in the deep basalt aquifers. Consequently, they do not have enough water available for full irrigation. They are allowed to pump water from the Columbia during the late fall and winter, so they pump this water 11 miles and up 600 feet in elevation and store the water in the deep aquifer. They are allowed to withdraw 90 percent of what they pump during the off-season when they need it in the summer. They also use no-till practices to reduce wind and water erosion and to conserve moisture.
Roric Paulman farms 5,600 acres of irrigated land and 1,400 acres of eco-fallow land in southwestern Nebraska. He has land in two different Republican River NRDs. Like the others, he grows a variety of crops, including sugar beets and popcorn. Being in NRDs that have water allocations, he plans his cropping patterns to best utilize his allotments of water over the five-year period of allocation. He uses no-till on all his crops and chemical fallow on the dryland areas.
The common thread tying these four farmers together is their intense efforts to get the most production from their natural resources, especially water. They use the latest genetic developments available for reducing damage from diseases and insects and weeds, and they use every possible method, starting with no-till systems, to conserve every bit of moisture they can so it can go into the crops to increase production.
I came away from the presentations with the belief that we are facing a very critical challenge to produce more from less if we are to feed the increasing population of the world. We have greatly increased our production in the past decades, but there are still many people who are virtually starving. I am convinced that we could produce a lot more with our current use of resources if every producer used all the technology available for his or her situation. It is clear that we are not now using, to full extent, all the knowledge we have to increase production. It is also quite evident that a big share of the shortage of water for food production in other countries is from financial and locational shortage rather than the physical shortage of water. There are simply not enough financial resources coupled with economic incentives to provide for the transfer of water from areas of excess supplies to those that are short of water. In some areas with adequate water supplies, there is not enough financial capacity to develop the resource to provide the food needs of the people living over abundant water supplies.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Yahoo
Post new comment