water less rice

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Plants bringing perspective for water and food
security
Prem Bindraban
2
Global demand for food
World population increase 2000 6 000 000
000 2040 11 000 000 000
Increasing wealth ? meat consumption increases
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Frightening pressure
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Projected demands - 2050

• 5600 km3 additional water required
• 800 km3 from additional irrigation
• 1500 km3 through increased efficiency
• 3300 km3 from transformation of natural
  ecosystems and grasslands to croplands (gt330 000
  000 hectares - Democratic Republic of Congo and
  Tanzania)

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Water use

• Drinking - 2 liter/day
• Basic household needs 100 liter/day
• Food 2600 (vegetarian) 5400 (meat) liter/day

• Agriculture is by far the largest use of water
• Water saving to be sought in this sector
• Plant requirements 1000 liter water for 1 kg
  grain

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Agricultural problems in practice - I
Reducing availability of water necessitates
transition in agricultural practices
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Agricultural problems in practice - II
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Transition in agricultural practices

• Changes in crop choice
• Changes in farming / integrated systems
• Development of new agronomic practices
• Exploiting non-terrestrial systems
• Conversion of current cultivation practices

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Changes in farming / integrated systems
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Development of new agronomic practices
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Exploiting non-terrestrial systems

• Minimal improvement of marine crops
• Advanced breeding techniques allow improvement of
  marine species
• Production potential great
• Novel proteins
• Medicinal aspects

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Water-less rice
Converting inundated rice cultivation into dry
rice
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Why research on rice ecosystems?

• heavy water consumer 2000-5000 l/kg rice

• important food crop 50 of the world population
• in Asia 80 of caloric intake is rice
• food security lt--gt water security

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Rice - wet or dry

• land preparation
• weed control
• water buffer
• inflow of nutrients
• nitrogen fixing organisms
• dissolving nutrients
• controlling acidification
• diseases
• fish

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Changing conditions - changing practices

• Labor requirement and direct seeding
• Land pressure and multiple cropping
• Water scarcity and water-less rice production
• Global climate change and methane emission in
  rice fields

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Project approach

• Integrated analysis and design of water saving
  rice ecosystems at different scales
• Field - empirical research (testing management
  practices)
• Farm - empirical/model research (survey/farm
  modelling)
• Watershed - model research (hydrological
  simulation model)

Field
Farm
Watershed
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Field - Design of water-use efficient rice systems
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Farm - opportunities and consequences

• Indonesia
• Water saving practices economically attractive
• Implementation difficult - infrastructure,
  communication between farmers and irrigation
  engineers, farmer skills, risk
• India
• Farmers are testing practices
• Government supports farm trials
• Madagascar
• System of rice intensification increases yields
• Adoption limited - requires much labour at moment
  that cash income is needed ? little time for
  labour demanding planting
• Overall opportunities
• Introduction other crops (expands windows of
  opportunity)
• Water for irrigating other / more land

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River basin
Implications for water availability and
alternative use

• Indonesia (Citarum basin)
• 10 change in land use ? new water reservoir
  unnecessary
• Water saving practices rice ? twice as much water
  for Jakarta
• Other options
• Expand irrigated land for food
• Allocate to nature conservation
• Allocate to industrial and household use

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Strengthen rice networks and capacity building

• International workshops and symposium
• Water Wise Rice production
• Transition in Agriculture
• Platform water-saving in rice-based cropping
  systems
• 7 BSc, 7 MSc and 3 PhD students received training
• 6 trainees for three months in the Netherlands
• 4 sandwich PhDs

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Follow up

• Need for innovative solutions
• Strong international ties
• Capacity building