Running out of Food and Water on the Nile?

NYT Opinion piece by Lester Brown, June 1, 2011.

When will someone actually do the math and conclude that many current projections of population growth, food production, ecosystem and state failure, etc., will not only create difficult conditions, but, most likely, impossible conditions that will cause a dramatic increase in death, destruction, and human misery, not to mention ecosystem, even bioshpheric destabilization and collapse that will touch everyone? This is the iron clad conclusion of the trends and the logic. The odds are against us. The only hope is the capacity of humans to change destiny by exercising intelligence and behaving in different ways that will produce different results. This will only occur if analysts begin concluding how high the probabilities are for the former (problems), and how low they are for the latter (successful human intervention), but also point out that the latter could still prevail if we mount an extraordinary effort. Unfortunately, the probability of the latter is zero if we presume the odds that we will behave differently are much higher than they actually are, which is the typical conclusion or implication of articles on this topic.

A NEW scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. . . .

Because Egypt’s wheat yields are already among the world’s highest, it has little potential to raise its agricultural productivity. With its population of 81 million projected to reach 101 million by 2025, finding enough food and water is a daunting challenge.

Egypt’s plight could become part of a larger, more troubling scenario. Its upstream Nile neighbors — Sudan, with 44 million people, and Ethiopia, with 83 million — are growing even faster, increasing the need for water to produce food. Projections by the United Nations show the combined population of these three countries increasing to 272 million by 2025 — and 360 million by 2050 — from 208 million now.

Growing water demand, driven by population growth and foreign land and water acquisitions, are straining the Nile’s natural limits. Avoiding dangerous conflicts over water will require three transnational initiatives. First, governments must address the population threat head-on by ensuring that all women have access to family planning services and by providing education for girls in the region. Second, countries must adopt more water-efficient irrigation technologies and plant less water-intensive crops.

Finally, for the sake of peace and future development cooperation, the nations of the Nile River Basin should come together to ban land grabs by foreign governments and agribusiness firms. Since there is no precedent for this, international help in negotiating such a ban, similar to the World Bank’s role in facilitating the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan, would likely be necessary to make it a reality.

None of these initiatives will be easy to implement, but all are essential. Without them, rising bread prices could undermine Egypt’s revolution of hope and competition for the Nile’s water could turn deadly.