Transforming Agriculture in Asia

Daily energy consumption per capita is expected to increase from 2,612 kilocalories in 2012 to 2,844 by 2030. Meanwhile, demand for food in Asia has shifted away from basic staples toward more resource-intensive animal-based products. Asians are also the biggest consumers of fish per capita in the world. Asia’s agriculture sector must be productive enough to meet these increases and shifts in demand.

Despite these gains, 86.8 million children in Asia under age 5 still suffer stunting. While insufficient agricultural production used to contribute to undernourishment in Asia, at present economic access to nutritious food is a bigger concern. Even in countries that have achieved high average calorie intake per capita, malnutrition persists as micronutrient deficiency. In addition, obesity and related noncommunicable diseases are rising steeply as healthy traditional diets yield to imported and processed food.

Extreme weather such as storms, floods, and droughts have frequently battered Asia’s agriculture sector in the past. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan dealt Philippine agriculture over $1.4 billion in losses. With climate change, the frequency and scale of such events is escalating, as is the damage they cause. In South Asia, monsoon rains are likely to increase by 6.4% even as droughts lengthen and occur 5–10 times more frequently.

The use of fertilizer subsidies lowered chemical input prices and encouraged their overuse, causing environmental pollution. Water scarcity is also worsening. About 70% of the world’s irrigated farmland is in Asia, but weak collective actions among farmers impede irrigation management. And in Asia’s rapidly growing aquaculture sector, sustainability issues revolve around mangrove destruction, salinization of land, groundwater depletion, and the effects on human health of residual chemicals in fish for consumption.

In 2019, timely information on monsoon floods in northern Bangladesh helped communities and the government prepare and secure necessary supplies, slashing economic losses by two-thirds. Advanced spatial information systems are critically important in developing early warning systems able to mitigate farmers’ exposure to climate risks and protect their livelihoods—as is strengthened national and local capacity to integrate these systems. Farmers can improve their climate resilience by adopting crop varieties that can cope with weather shocks.

Crop insurance schemes exist in over three-fourths of the countries in developing Asia but are fully operational nationally in only four: India, the Philippines, the PRC, and Sri Lanka. Insurance programs use spatial information systems to speed crop damage assessments and expedite claim settlement. Enhanced spatial information systems can expand coverage of insurance programs.

Although contract disputes often arise because of unclear agreements and weak contract enforcement, contract farming can benefit farmers in Asia with advanced agreements on output prices and technical assistance to reach high-value food markets.

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, the expansion of e-commerce for agricultural products and food deliveries mitigated the pandemic-induced food demand reductions from the eating-out industry.

However, such policies can induce overproduction and distort markets. A better approach decouples rural welfare support from agricultural policy, which properly invests in research and development, encourages innovation, and pursues market-oriented development. Policies should also promote a balanced and nutritious diet for all.