Asia and the Pacific today account for over 58 percent of the global population. About 70 percent of the world's rural population live in this region. Yet per capita arable and permanent cropland availability in the region is only 0.16 ha, compared to 0.37 ha in the rest of the world. An estimated 545 million people in the region are undernourished, comprising 65 percent of the world's ill-fed. Women and children, ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities constitute a disproportionately high percentage of the vulnerable.
The statistical data refer to the FAO member countries in the Asia-Pacific region (as listed on the inside fron cover page) exclusing France and the United States of America. The estimate on under-nourished people excludes countries with no available data (Bhutan, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu). The data are taken from the FAOSTAT database as of September 2004 and FAO's flagship publication The state of Food Insecurity in the world 2003.
Despite limited natural resource endowments and its massive, mainly youthful, population base, Asia and the Pacific made substantial inroads in eradicating poverty and food insecurity during the last three decades. Since 1945, the region's economy grew faster than in any other region. Literacy rates have considerably increased, and improved nutrition and public health programmes have raised life expectancies by over a generation in only half a century.
These past achievements form the context for new advances, many in critical development areas: extensive education and agricultural research networks; developments in information and communications technologies; modern biotechnology; social innovations in development including resource decentralization; foreign direct investment; growing regional and global economic linkages; and international trade.
Broader citizen participation in decision-making and governance is reflected in dynamic non-governmental organizations (NGOs), increased women's suffrage and decision-making processes open to multistakeholder participation. Information flows more freely in the media and within civil societies.
Historically, the region has been the centre of agricultural advances. Two of the four cradles of agriculture emerged in the region. Domestication of farm animal and plant species dates back many millennia. Aquaculture was first developed in Asia. And, more recently, the Green Revolution in rice began here. Today, over 50 percent of the world's industrial crops are produced in the Asia-Pacific region and production continues to expand.
Enabling policy and economic environments have led to many success stories, including unique rural development models: from agro-industrial entrepreneurship, cooperatives, and rural financial systems to farmer field schools in integrated pest management.
Against this rapid progress there have been setbacks due to man-made or natural disasters. The El Niño events brought widespread devastating droughts. The Asian economic crisis slowed growth in several countries and affected the livelihoods of millions of people. The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003 and the avian influenza outbreaks in Asia in 2004 caused enormous economic losses and threatened human health.
Many factors in the region affect its ability to achieve sustainable food security for all. Ensuring access to food for the hungry and poor will persist as a major challenge within the strategic time horizon towards 2015. Identification and analysis of the important trends in the agricultural sector likely to have the greatest impact on achievement of sustainable agriculture and rural development are outlined below.
The link between population growth and poverty remains strong, especially among the most deprived. About two-thirds of the world's 1.2 billion absolute poor live in this region. Continuing improvements in public health programmes and education will result in further population increases, now estimated to reach nearly four billion by 2015. In addition, rising living standards and consumer expectations will impose ever-higher demands on the region's already strained natural resource base.
Out-migration of young males and the skilled has led to the greying and feminization of farms and fishing villages - rural communities peopled mainly by the elderly and women. Other demographic trends also play a key role in vital developmental and environmental issues, including: formal education, HIV/AIDS and rural health, urbanization and unemployment.
Subsistence-oriented agriculture is in transition as industrialization and commercialization increase. The needed growth in agricultural production must come from intensification and wider use of modern technology. Capacity building and investment in natural resource conservation and technology transfer are, as a consequence, rising in priority. As a result, intervention strategies and requests for external assistance are likely to increase, especially in: biotechnology, efficient water use, integrated pest management, nutrient and weed management, food safety, on-farm diversification, agribusiness and marketing.
Asian agriculture remains highly labour intensive, but the growth of industries and commerce is drawing the talented and trained to urban centres, leaving the unskilled in rural areas. The employment and integration of (surplus) rural workers into modernizing economies requires sustained skill development built around comprehensive human resource development programmes.
The incidence and impact of disasters are increasing. Historically, the region suffers from a proportionally larger share of the world's catastrophic natural and man-made disasters. These range from wild fires, cyclones, landslides, floods and drought to transboundary animal and plant pests and diseases, war, civil unrest and economic crises. Both floods and droughts cause the bulk of losses in agriculture, exceeding over US$90 billion yearly worldwide.
Disasters inflict a toll on people, property and economies, especially on agriculture, the rural poor and small farmers; the impact of avian influenza outbreaks is a typical example. Economic losses are increasing as infrastructure expands and populations grow in disaster-prone and high-risk areas, often avoided in the past.
There is increasing recognition of the need for concerted regional action on disaster management and mitigation in the food and agriculture sector. Such regional cooperation should be aimed at strengthening national capacity in managing the full disaster cycle of prevention, preparedness, early warning, needs assessment, relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and sustainable recovery. Building resilient rural communities and introducing improved agricultural practices will be crucial for cushioning the impact of disasters.
A livestock revolution is reshaping the industry. Asia and the Pacific account for the largest animal population worldwide. The region also possesses the biggest pool of farm animal genetic resources.
Owing to consumer-driven demand, meat and milk production grew at 5 percent while egg output expanded at 7 percent per annum in the 1990s. This contrasts with 1.4 percent and 0.9 percent respectively for the rest of the world. If this advance is sustained, the region's livestock sector has the potential to spearhead sustainable agriculture and rural development in the decade to 2015.
Unsustainable production practices in the livestock sector, though, have resulted in serious environmental degradation stemming primarily from inadequate livestock policies and the faulty application of new technologies, particularly in intensification, feeding and disease control.
Moreover, expanding international trade of livestock and livestock products and growing international travel have sharply increased the risk of disastrous pest outbreaks and transboundary diseases, including zoonotic diseases. Effective prevention and progressive control of transboundary animal diseases at regional and international levels are urgently needed.
Policy measures to gradually reduce animal production and processing in areas with high animal concentrations and waste loads need to be adopted. Approaches that encourage mixed farming and integrated crop-livestock production systems in rural areas should be encouraged.
The high pressure on forest resources remains a concern. In the region's tropical countries, deforestation rates reached 2.5 million hectares annually between 1991 and 2000. That unsustainable rate has slowed as timber for harvesting has become more and more available only in remote areas. Today, about 28 percent of the region's land area retains forest cover, equivalent to only a quarter of a hectare of wooded land per person - the lowest rate for any region.
One of the most significant trends has been the shift from exploitation of natural forests towards development and use of forest plantations. Asia and the Pacific lead the world in tropical forest plantation development. During the 1990s, the forest plantation area increased by 3.5 million hectares annually, which is equivalent to 79 percent of the global growth rate.
Throughout the region, foresters are facing calls for sustainable forest management while, at the same time, government budgets for forest administrations are falling and forest product prices are in decline. In view of this, financing the implementation of sustainable forest management has become a major challenge and is receiving increased attention by policy-makers and forest managers at the local, national and international levels. In recent years, an increasing number of governments throughout the region have also embarked on decentralization and devolution to empower local communities, local governments and civil society organizations in managing their own affairs in forestry. This trend is driven, in part, by a desire to enhance the roles of civil society as a partner of government in supporting rural development and natural resource management. The shift has also been fuelled by an increasing number of conflicts between the state and local people, widespread illegal activities and the recognition that many forest departments have neither the capacities nor the finances to deal with the multifaceted requirements of modern forest management and the contributions forestry can make to poverty reduction.
Aquatic resources are under intense pressure. Asia and the Pacific account for 55 percent of the world's fish catch, but a worldwide decline in fisheries production has had apparent negative trends in Asia and the Pacific. Almost two-thirds of the major fish species are either fully exploited or overexploited. To maintain production volume, fishers now capture more "trash fish". This slump impacts the poorest who are often highly dependent on fish as a major source of animal protein.
Aside from destructive fishing, like use of dynamite and poison, El Niño and other weather aberrations affect the industry. High technology gear is efficient but can, if not effectively regulated, damage fishing grounds severely.
Conversely, the region produces 90 percent of the world's aquacultural output, representing the greatest diversity of species and systems. The growing global trade in fisheries products makes this a growth area, but problems are emerging owing to environmental impacts and increasing trade barriers.
Management and governance of fisheries resources are often weak or non-existent. The importance of aquatic resources and other water ecosystem products has not yet been fully realized and given the priority it merits in policy and programmes.
Water scarcity and land degradation are worsening. Over 28 percent of the region's landscape is severely degraded and, though the region appears well endowed with water resources, its internal renewable water resources are only about half the world's average.
Over-exploitation of water and land degradation is aggravated by the lack of clearly defined property rights and vague institutional arrangements. A growing number of industries and residential users compete for limited water supplies. Shortages have triggered conflicts, affecting agriculture.
Increasing cropping intensity in agriculture, livestock and aquaculture intensification, and industrialization have also led to land degradation, pollution and the compounded risk of pests and diseases.
This stress is reflected in other problems: from widespread topsoil erosion and desertification, waterlogging, salinization of aquifers, agricultural pollution of aquifers and water bodies to eutrophication from high levels of nitrogen use and even loss of biodiversity. These developments threaten agriculture's sustainability. Of particular concern are their long-term impacts on the region's ability to feed itself.
Introduction of improved agricultural practices and environmental accounting are of special relevance. So is community as well as private sector participation in resource management. In this regard, there is growing evidence of the benefits brought about by the devolution of authority and funds to support rural development. Such participatory approaches will accelerate appropriate on-farm technology adoption.
Information and communications technologies are under-utilized. Agriculture's ability to respond to the demand for sustainable production will increasingly rely on its growth as a science and information-based sector. By 2015, Asia and the Pacific will, for example, witness the emergence of biotechnology as a contributing factor to sustainable production in developing countries.
Tapping such potentials will depend on strengthening currently limited capacities in information and communications technologies (ICTs). Failure to act decisively may further widen the digital divide between rural and urban populations, as well as the so-called molecular gap between the South and North. Most public sector agencies still neglect adapting ICTs to disseminate the results of research and development more rapidly and widely.
Globalization is reshaping the region's trade and investment landscape. As market integration across countries advances, food safety and nutrition standards will require increased attention. Governments are called upon to facilitate an enabling environment for the whole agricultural production and marketing chain to encourage much needed investments in rural areas.
Amidst rapid change, national governments need to revise development strategies and policies and restructure agriculture towards market-driven production. In addition, many countries in the region suffer from weak institutions at the local level. This constraint is most apparent in farmers' organizations, rural credit and finance, and marketing systems. It also strains the traditional safety-nets of food-insecure households.
International organizations are pressed in various fora to increase efforts to help create a level playing field in the international trade of agricultural products for developing countries. Developing countries have stressed the urgent need for building institutions and human capacity directed at gains in productivity, sustainability and market access.
The need for concerted action at subregional and regional levels to develop the institutional infrastructure for sustainable agriculture and rural development has become more pronounced. This trend will impose significant changes in the roles of government, NGOs, civil society organizations and farmers' organizations, as well as in the mechanisms used by international organizations as service providers.
There is growing inequity among countries in the region as well as at national and local levels. Average farm size is declining in many countries. Size distribution is increasingly skewed towards small farms. Increasing occupation of marginal lands also exacerbates inequalities in land and water distribution.
Productivity gains and commercialization of agriculture have contributed to rural incomes, but inappropriate policies often favour large producers. Others reward projects with negative social and environmental impacts. Vulnerable groups remain at great risk.
Failure to consider equity in development and governance - including issues raised by decentralization, globalization and trade liberalization - will further marginalize vulnerable groups, especially women, small producers and landless farmers. Some countries can no longer put off the formidable task of comprehensive agrarian reform.
Food security for children and women, in particular adolescent girls who are future mothers, should constitute the key factor in drawing up future policies. There is no shortage of models for pro-poor and pro-environment policies and special programmes for food security.
Effective rural education systems as well as health and social welfare schemes can increase the incomes of the poor. They also create an enabling environment for marginalized groups to work their way to more humane standards of living and ensure sustained production and social harmony so essential for progress.
