Literature Review on Relevant South East Asian Countries

The world&s;s population had reached 6 billion in 2000 ( Rosen, 2000 ). Projections for 2025 and 2050 show a world population of 8 billion and 9.3 billion people respectively. Most of them will live in Asia ( Roberts, 1998 ). This expected growth, in combination with the expected increases in the standard of living in many countries will require a significant increase in food production. On the other hand loss of agricultural land and reduction in crop yields are caused by erosion, desertification, urbanisation and industrialisation, water logging, salinization, environmental concerns, or degeneration of existing flood control, drainage and irrigation schemes ( Schultz, 1993 ). Urbanization and industrialization, for example, result in a loss of some 13 million ha cultivated land annually. Most of the extra food (about 90% over the next 25 years), is expected to come from the present 1,500 million ha cropland of the world. In addition it is expected that about 10% from the required increase will have to come from newly reclaimed lands ( Hofwegen and Svendsen, 2000 ).