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Vocabularies general agriculture 一般农业 irrigation agriculture 灌溉农业 soil fertility 土壤肥力 subsistence agriculture 生存农业 Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my great pleasure to participate in this symposium on “Environmental Security, Stable Social Order and Culture”. Today, people around the world, particularly in the developing world are struggling to survive in the face of growing deserts, dwindling forests, declining fisheries and climatic extremes and weather events that continue to intensify - floods, droughts and hurricanes. The question that must be asked is whether the scarcity of renewable resources - such as cropland, forest, freshwater and fisheries - could precipitate violent civil or international conflicts? There are clear signs that environmental scarcities could contribute to violent conflicts in many parts of the world. In the coming decades, accelerating environmental pressures could transform the foundations of the international political system. Let us take the availability of water first. Supplies of fresh water are finite. The population of water-short countries today, estimated to be 550 million, are expected to increase to one billion in three years. Water shortages will be especially adverse for agriculture in general and irrigation agriculture in particular. As the demand grows and in the absence of clear consensus on how best to use shared water resources for the benefit of all, that competition has the potential of erupting into acrimonious disputes. An even greater threat to future human welfare is through the undermining of the productivity of the land through accelerated soil erosion, increased flooding and declining soil fertility. The rate at which arable land is being lost is also increasing and is currently 30-35 times the historical rate. The loss of potential productivity due to soil erosion world wide is estimated to be equivalent to some 20 million tons of grain per year or 1% of global production. Today, we are in the process of