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Crop institute trying to halt advance of deserts in Asia |
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May 3, 2000 NEW DELHI, MAY 2 (AP) - Expanding populations and poor use of water are turning more than 40 percent of Asia into desert and causing drought, but it can be halted through better use of science, experts said Tuesday.
Semiarid regions of Asia and Africa are home to some 800 million people, nearly one half of them so poor that they don't get enough food to eat, said William Dar, director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics, or ICRISAT.
"The desertification of Asia is particularly pronounced in China and India ... and we see this happening now in Rajasthan and Gujarat," Dar told a news conference in New Delhi.
The current drought in Rajasthan and Gujarat has affected more than 50 million people and killed thousands of cows, goats and buffaloes. However, no human deaths have been reported so far. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes to nearby towns where government water tankers and fodder trains have been distributing emergency supplies.
Thirty million others in nine other states are facing water shortage, the Indian government said in a status report published last week.
The institute, Dar said, has signed up with India's government to use satellite technology to identity where ponds should be dug and to identify land that is being degraded and turning into a desert.
The ICRISAT is funded by dozens of countries and works with local governments to produce disease and drought-resistant sorghum, millet, chickpea, pigeonpea and peanuts, which most of the people in the region depend upon.
Dar said villagers in India must be encouraged to adopt centuries-old practices of storing rainwater. "Places that have done so don't have any water shortage or drought," he said.
The institute is also collaborating with Indian scientific institutions to make cattle fodder, such as sorghum stalks, more digestible. "After all, livestock is the walking bank of farmers," he said.
Studies conducted by the institute have shown that even a one percent improvement in the digestibility of fodder can save the country dlrs 60 million, Dar said.
Scientists have said that successive state governments, especially in Rajasthan and Gujarat, did not heed warnings of the impending drought. They said simple solutions, such as check dams over rivers and ponds to trap rain water, were being ignored in favor of expensive dams.
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