Asian farmers suck the continent dry

摘要

A generation ago, Indian farmers in the state of Gujarat used bullocks to lift water from shallow wells in leather buckets. Now they haul it from 300 metres below ground using electric pumps. But that technological revolution is about to have devastating consequences. So much water is being drawn from underground reserves that they, and the pumps they feed, are running dry, turning fields that have been fecund for generations into desert. The world's leading water scientists warned this week that this little-heralded crisis is repeating itself across Asia, and could cause widespread famines in the decades to come.