A senior official of the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) said Saturday that developing water-efficient agriculture is the fundamental solution to China's food supply security.

With effective water-efficient measures, China is confident to rely the country's food supply on its own water and soil resources by 2030, when China's population is expected to reach the peak of 1.5 to 1.6 billion, said Zhai Haohui, Vice-Minister ofthe MWR, at the China Development Forum on Building Resource-Efficient Society being held from June 25 to 26.

From now to 2030, China's water demand is due to rise as its industrial sector will continue to grow and its urbanization move will speed up. By then, to assure the food demand of a population of 1.6 billion, China have to enlarge its agricultural irrigation area and increase the overall grain yield with the agricultural water quota not increased much, said Zhai.

To achieve this goal, the fundamental solution is to build up awater-efficient agriculture and a water-efficient society, he said.

According to Zhai, China has a large water-efficient potential in the agricultural sector.

Currently, the agricultural water consumption accounts for 70 percent of the total consumption of the country with the use ratio of water resources of only 0.45.

By taking a series of measures in policy, regulations, engineering and technology, China endeavors to raise the ratio to 0.55 or over 0.6 in the next to ten years, said Zhai.

The Chinese government has taken water efficiency as a significant measure. In the 2005 "No. 1 document" of the CPC central committee on agriculture development, enhancing farming irrigation and water-efficiency ability has been written as an important item.

Zhai said that Chinese farmers are the weak group of the country. So the government must increase investment in rural wateruse to support the water-efficient move.

Since 1998, the Chinese government has been increasing investment in agricultural irrigation with an annual two billion yuan (242 million US dollars) appropriated in reconstructing large-scale water-efficient projects of farming irrigation.

The No. 1 document made clear to establish funds for small water efficiency works for farmlands.Zhai emphasized the importance of popularizing advanced water-efficient techniques such as drop irrigation, the management of water use with price control and a reasonable pricing system for agricultural water use.

Through effective and positive water-effcient and agricultural development efforts, the Chinese government is confident that China has the ability to meet its food demand on its own water andsoil resources by 2030, said Zhai.

Source: Xinhua