Booming Middle-Class Diet May Stress Asia’s Water Needs

At current crop yields, East Asia would need 47 percent more irrigated farmland and to find 70 percent more water, the study found.

South Asia would have to expand its irrigated crop areas by 30 percent and increase water use by 57 percent. Given existing agriculture pressure on water resources and territory, that’s an impossible scenario, the study authors said. In South Asia, for example, 94 percent of suitable land is already being farmed.

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