EuropaWorld 5/1/2001 Rice: The Short Supply Staple

According to the FAO in 2025 the world will need to be producing a third as much rice again as it is doing now. But population growth is already outstripping production. EuropaWorld Editor Peter Sain ley Berry looks at the issues.

Yield Gap and Productivity Decline in Rice Production is hardly the stuff of which headlines are made. In fact it sounds like the old Soviet Union in its heyday. But what these words actually convey is that the production of rice is not growing nearly as fast a the number of people who depend on it to survive. Which is why the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recently brought together a number of experts in rice farming to get a measure of the problem.

First some facts. Rice is the most important staple crop in the world, providing half the world's people (that is 3 billion souls) with 80 per cent of their diet. Thanks to new high-yielding varieties and improved farming methods, rice production grew quickly in the 1970s and 1980s, easily keeping pace with demand. But during the 1990s production began to slow and for the first time the growth in rice production fell below the growth in the population.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, rice productivity kept up with rising population. In the 1990s, rice production began to grow more slowly than population. (Source: FAOSTAT, 1998)

Annual world production of rice is around 600 million tonnes, the majority produced and consumed in Asia. If the gap between demand and supply is going to be met, one third as much rice again as is being grown today will have to be produced over the next 25 years, and still more again in the future until the population stabilises. That is a massive challenge for all involved.

Experts first began to notice the decline in rice productivity in Thailand and India, and then confirmed it during long-term trials in the Philippines. Although no one can say with certainty exactly what led to the drop, says Mr Nguu Nguyen, Agricultural Officer in FAO's Crop and Grassland Service, FAO experts believe that it is probably due to a combination of factors. Intensive cropping may harm soil make-up. Irrigation, which encourages high yield, also can increase soil salinity. In some places, the scarcity of land and water impedes improved productivity. And as specially-bred varieties reach their yield limit, there's simply much less room for improvement.

In some countries less rice is being planted as land becomes exhausted or otherwise unsuitable for cultivation. A simple shortage of water can also pose a problem as rice yields depend critically on water. This is of particular concern in the light of a study by the International Water Management Institute, which suggests that by 2020 one third of the Asia population could be facing a water shortage.

"We'll need to increase current rice production from nearly 600 million tonnes annually to almost 800 million by the year 2025 if we want to keep up with population growth," says Mr Nguyen, "and to make sure the growth is sustainable, we'll need to do it using less land, labour, water and pesticides."

And that, of course, is the problem. Today's yields have been pushed up by an intensification of production systems - more expensive seeds, more fertilisers, more pesticides. But such systems create a strain on the environment and may not be sustainable in the long term.

Part of the difficulty in explaining the decline stems from regional and cropping differences, say FAO. For example, in many irrigated systems in Africa, the slowdown appears to be due to poor infrastructure and management - if plants are not watered because a power cut means that water cannot be pumped, the rice plants cannot grow.

Nonetheless some experts concluded that the negative trend was not inevitable. Looking at the figures worldwide they noticed some anomalies. While production growth had declined in most countries, in Australia, Egypt and the United States it had risen.

In Egypt, for instance, a government-supported rice research programme helped raise production from 5.8 tonnes per hectare to 8.5 tonnes over ten years. Government policies facilitated rice production by increasing farmer participation, improving water and pest management and providing credit schemes. And in Australia a 'rice check' system helped farmers to identify which factors are causing yield reductions so they can respond with focused actions. This system will now be extended to other countries.

One way of increasing rice production would be to increase the land area planted with rice. This indeed may be the way forward for Africa, one of the world's biggest rice consuming regions. Despite having the right climatic conditions in several countries, only 3 per cent of the 130 million hectares of land suitable for rice cultivation is being used at present, say FAO.

If some of this land could be brought into production it would have a major effect. In West Africa, for instance, FAO report that the inability to keep up with consumer demand has led to a 400 per cent increase in rice imports over the past 25 years. This cost these countries US$ 1 billion in 1995.

But the problem with bringing African land under cultivation is poverty. Despite the import bill it may be cheaper for governments to import rice than to make the investment in the irrigation infrastructure that rice farming demands. On top of this for successful rice production farmers would need high quality seeds and fertilisers and above all training.

For unless the conversion to rice farming is done properly it can lead to poor farming practices. FAO quote the example of some farmers who tried to meet local demand for rice by cropping more intensely in fragile upland areas. The result was soil erosion, deforestation and decreased fertility. Government policies will need to offer incentives and proper training if rice farmers are to increase production without harming natural resources, says Mr Nguyen.