COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2016
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Lastly, one of the widely produced agricultural products in the OIC Member Countries is
cotton which provides main sources of raw materials to textile industry. Furthermore, it is an
important cash crop for millions of farmers, which generates income to rural household.
Therefore, it enhances the food security of farmers with respect to accessibility of food,
especially in poor regions.
Cotton yield in the OIC and world is illustrated in the Figure 20 during the period 1995-
2014. As seen in the figure, the yield of cotton in the OIC Member Countries shows a poor
performance over the last two decades. While it is noted 1.8 tons/hectare in 1995, it slightly
increased to 2.0 tons/hectare in 2014. Compared to the world, the cotton yield of the OIC was
higher than the world till the beginning of the 21. Century, the world average cotton yield has
surpassed the OIC figures during 2000s. As of 2014, world average cotton yield was 17 percent
higher than OIC’s.
2.4. Irrigation
Agricultural production has increased considerably since 1960s in the world. The
increase in crop yield has a crucial role in this increase. Improvements in the quantity and
quality of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, water, mechanization, fuel, seed, land and
labor, have been the main reason of crop yield increase. It is estimated that growing fertilizer
application and more water usage by irrigation have been responsible for over 70 percent of
the crop yield increase throughout the world.11
Water is the most crucial input for agricultural production. One of the remarkable
characteristics of water is that in addition to the fact of its being an indispensable input it
works as an augmenting input in agriculture when it is combined with other inputs of
production such as improved seeds and fertilizer.12 Thus it has a tremendous role to play in
agriculture in increasing both production and productivity.
The total volume of water on earth is about 1.4 billion km3 of which only 2.5 percent, or
about 35 million km3 , is freshwater. Freshwater is a highly valuable resource as there are large
number of competing demands, including drinking water, irrigation, hydroelectricity, waste
disposal, industrial processes, transport and recreation, as well as ecosystem functions and
services. As mentioned above, agricultural sector is the most important user with 70 percent in
terms of amount of all freshwater used by humans within these competing sectors at the global
level.13 In the OIC, agriculture sector consumes 86 percent of total fresh water which is higher
than world average.14 In developing regions like Africa and Asia, agriculture uses more fresh
water. On the other hand, the share of agriculture in water consumption is lower in continents
having high level precipitation than arid and semi-arid ones.
11 Nellemann et. al, 2009
12 Nayak and Bhattacharjee, 2005
13 UNEP, 2002
14 SESRIC, 2014