- Agriculture provides a living for more than 2.2 billion people in the region.
- Rice is by far the most significant crop in Asia, with 90 percent of global production and consumption taking place here.
- Many economists have stated rice is an inferior good due to statistics demonstrating that rice consumption declines as income grows.
- Despite predictions of famine and starvation, the Green Revolution helped most Asian countries become food self-sufficient in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Sugarcane from Brazil was the world's greatest crop in 2019, followed by sugarcane from India and corn from the United States.
- In 2019, China produced five of the world's top ten crops. Corn, rice, vegetables, milled rice, and wheat are all available.
- Declining agriculture investments can be connected to stagnating and declining yields of main crops such as rice and wheat. In India, for example, public agricultural investments have been very constant since 2004.
- Biotech crops were predicted to be produced on 160 million hectares of land in 2011, making them the fastest-adopted crop technology.
- Asia accounted for three of the top 10 countries growing transgenic crops in 2011. The People's Republic of China planted 3.9 million hectares of cotton, papaya, poplar, tomato, and sweet pepper, whereas Pakistan farmed 2.6 million hectares of cotton.
- Asia and the Pacific account for 37 percent of global agricultural emissions, with the People's Republic of China alone accounting for more than 18 percent of the total.
- Agriculture is the largest user of water in most Asian countries, accounting for up to 90% of total water use.
- Demand for food and feed crops will nearly double in the next 50 years. Meat, milk, sugar, oils, and vegetables all require more water than cereals, as well as a different approach to water management.
- The agro-food trade is an important sector of the People's Republic of China's economy, with 25% of the world's population and just 7% of the world's arable land; predicted agro-food imports in the next decades will have substantial repercussions inside Asia.
- The Asian Development Bank's 2009 Operational Plan for Sustainable Food Security in Asia and the Pacific emphasizes the importance of integrating agricultural production, market connection, and resilience to ensure long-term food security.
Source: Asian Development Bank Report, beef2live.com
