World water crisis

Growing population of the world will put great strain on supply

More than five billion worldwide face water shortage by 2025, experts tell summit,

DUBAI // Two-thirds of the world population, or 5.3 billion people, will face some kind of water scarcity by 2025, experts have said.

With the increasing inter-relation of food, water, energy and climate change, projections have shown that 60 per cent more food and 50 per cent more water will be needed by 2050, as well as 57 per cent more energy by 2040, according to the United States Energy Information Administration.

“Energy is a big chunk of resources which we need to produce water,” said Sudhakar Tomar, the managing director of Hakan Agro, a company which specialises in agricultural products in Dubai.

“There is no plan B. We have to fix this or we won’t be left with a foreseeable future,” he said at the final day of the World Food Security Summit.

According to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, sea levels are expected to rise by up to 82 centimetres by the end of the century, he said.

“The global surface temperature will also change and it is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to the 1900s,” he said. “This will lead to floods and inundations.”

And that will harm food production, the summit heard. By 2050, 3 per cent of Africa’s land will no longer be able to grow maize and it is projected to move from mixed crop and livestock systems to livestock-only farming systems.

“We want to lift productivity for 75 million farmers in Africa by three times and double it in South-East Asia by 2030,” said Hassan Al Damluji, the head of Middle East Relations at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“This would lift 400 million people out of poverty, which is a huge number.” But consumers need to start changing their habits first, as demand for animal protein is increasing.

Experts said an urgent plan, including a diversification in crops and a change in diet among consumers, had to be put in place.

“According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the amount of available calories per person per day is now at 2,720,” said Mr Tomar.

“Food is not available at the right place at the right time and we’re also losing between 33 and 50 per cent of food in the way we transport and store it.”

That amounts to 1.2 billion to 2.2 billion tonnes of food wasted. “It’s staggering,” he said.

“Almost a billion people go hungry, while a third of the food produced is wasted. Wasting food is a common habit yet we need to increase all major crops like maize, rice, wheat and corn by 60 per cent by 2050.”

Water scarcity must also be tackled as two-thirds of the world’s water is used in agriculture and 50 per cent more water is needed by 2050.

It takes 7,000 litres of water to produce one pound of beef but 200 litres to produce a pound of pulses Sudhakar Tomar managing director of Hakan Agro

“Fifty per cent of the global population don’t have access to the quality of water available to the citizens of Rome 2,000 years ago,” said Mr Tomar.

“And 5.3 billion people will suffer from water shortages by 2025, which is two-thirds of the world’s population, and 1.8 million children die each year from waterborne diseases, which is one every 15 seconds.” He said consumers must start moving away from a meat-based diet, which drains water resources.

“The annual global consumption of 300 million tonnes of meat requires over 4.5 billion tonnes of agricultural crops to grow,” he said.

“While it takes about 7,000 litres of water to produce one pound of beef, it takes a bit less than 200 to produce a pound of pulses. A target of just 10 per cent replacement of animal protein like meat and dairy with vegetable protein like pulses will free up about 500 million tonnes of food crop in the market, ensuring adequate economical food supply to the world.”

The UN declared 2016 as the year of pulses.

“If we improve our output in Asia and Africa, we can help solve or mitigate losses and have a roadmap,” said Mr Tomar.