Food or Environment: An Alternative Solution to Tradeoff of Water Allocation in Oasis Regions of China

Abstract

Land degradation and desertification due to excessive water use has become a severe problem in arid and semi-arid areas. In order to combat these conditions, it is necessary to reduce water allocation to agricultural activities. To maintain farm production, it is important to extend water-saving techniques while reducing water use. This paper presents an insight into the impacts of water use reduction on food production based on a case study in oasis regions of China. The results indicate that water use reduction will cause a negative impact on food production so that farmers cannot produce enough grain to supply themselves. Extension of water-saving techniques and increasing off-farm job opportunities may alleviate the negative effect. If subsidies for grain crops would lead to adoption of water-saving techniques, it would be feasible to maintain the level of food self-supplying. However the quantity of commercial wheat is quite low. Increasing of off-farm opportunities may improve household income to a certain extent. It is believed that the alternative solution to the conflict of water allocation between food security and ecological security will mainly depend on subsidy measures for promoting extension of water-saving technologies in the raising of grain crops.