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E-book Closing Rice Yield Gaps in Asia : Innovations, Scaling, and Policies for Environmentally Sustainable Lowland Rice Production

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Penilaian

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Agricultural development in Asia has undergone multiple phases and has experienced a remarkable evolution that also advanced general economic development. The region has become a major agricultural producer in the world due to the Green Revolution in the second half of the twentieth century (Hazell 2009). In particular, its rice exports have become essential for today’s global food security (De Koninck and Rousseau 2013; OECD-FAO 2017). Asia is a net rice-exporting region accounting for 70% of the world’s rice exports, and Africa’s food security highly depends on Asia’s ability to maintain its agricultural exports (FAO 2014). South Asian (SA)and South East Asian (SEA) countries are considerable contributors to local, regional, and global food security (FAO 2014). Today, most Asian countries are at a transitional stage of agricultural development that follow relatively modern farming practices (Seck et al. 2012; Lagerqvist and Connell 2018). In general, a dual-household economy in which subsistence agriculture combined with other income-generating activities within or outside the agriculture sector has become the norm (Lim 2004; Lagerqvist and Connell 2018). Nevertheless, traditional lowland and upland rainfed rice farming supplies over 20% of global rice production and is mainly located in South and Southeast Asia with relatively low yields, little input use, and high seasonal variability (Seck et al. 2012;GRiSP 2013). New challenges have emerged due to environmental, social, and economic imbal-ances across Asia. These limit agricultural growth and threaten rural livelihoods. The negative effects of fast agricultural and economic growth materialize in environ-mental degradation, lingering food insecurity, increased disparities, and marginalized peripheral regions (Pingali 2012). Rice farmers often use excessive amounts of agri-cultural inputs, such as synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, seeds, and water. Thus, they have a particularly large environmental footprint because their intensive farming practices affect the environment due to unsustainable natural resources use ( ?Cu?cek et al. 2015; OEDC and FAO 2017). Consequently, rice farming contributes to envi-ronmental degradation in Asia and plays a significant role in emitting greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. Globally, rice accounts for about 11% of all anthropogenic methane emissions (IPCC 2013; Jiang et al. 2017). This poses a threat to human health, biodiversity, and global food security (Redfern et al. 2012). In Asia particularly, agricultural production has grown twice as fast as the global average since 1960 (De Koninck and Rousseau 2013). This rapid growth over the past five decades has been an essential characteristic of Asia’s agricultural and economic evolution. Rural poverty has declined substantially and GDP per capita has grown strongly in Asia from the 1980s onwards (World Bank 2022). Furthermore, abso-lute poverty fell by 28% from 1975 to 1995, although the total population in the region grew by 60% over that same period (Fogel 2009; Hazell 2009). Reduced poverty resulted directly from increased farmer income due to higher outputs and improved profitability of smallholder farmers due to reduced prices of agricultural products. Indirectly, new employment opportunities in postharvest operations raised employee wages. Rapid rice production increases stimulated the demand and prices for land, labor, nonagricultural goods, and services (FAO 2004; Hazell 2009). Agri-cultural exports multiplied and countries’ export performance was strengthened (De Koninck and Rousseau 2013). Furthermore, modern agricultural production systems required far less human labor. Consequently, migration to favorable areas where employment opportunities were higher bolstered rural incomes. This created new off-farm activities and led to more diversification of rural economies. A significant surplus labor force benefited the industrial sector. The new industrial labor force then profited from the reduction in staple food prices and rising incomes from 1960 to the early 2000s. In this regard, lower food prices with increased income levels changed salary spending ratios. This allowed for higher spending capacity, particularly for the poor, and hence for rapid economic growth. In addition, the impact on nutrition due to an increase in per capita food supply met the needs of millions in Asia (Hazell 2009; Pingali 2012). Without the modern technologies and practices of the Green Revolution, world food prices would have been 35–65% higher today. Moreover, it has been esti-mated that without the creation of the CGIAR centers and national and international breeding programs, total food production quantities in developing countries would have been almost 20% lower (Pingali 2012). As a whole, the positive economic effects of the Green Revolution were especially beneficial for the poor. They gained relatively more from the agricultural productivity growth and decreasing food prices because they spend a higher share of their income on food (Kaosa-ard and Rerkasem 1999; McKittrick 2012; Pingali 2012). Thus, agriculture has shown to be an engine of economic growth, particularly for the rural nonfarm economy (FAO 2004; Hazell 2009). Today, Asia is a major producer of grains for the world and holds a global rice production share of 90%. This is mainly because more than half of the global rice production is concentrated in China and India (OECD-FAO 2020).

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

338.1 BAL c

Penerbit

Switzerland : Springer Nature., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

282 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783031379475

Klasifikasi

338.1

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Agriculture

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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