Asia Teeters Toward Food Crisis from Lack of Water
By Daniel Pepper
Just before dusk on the central plain of India's northern Punjab state Naresh Kumar, 22, crouches under drill and sprinkles mustard oil, turmeric, raw sugar and confections inside a 10-inch circle traced in the rich soil. Hands clasped and head bowed, he offers a short prayer to a Sufi saint asking for a bountiful supply of groundwater. He then cranks up his coughing and wheezing diesel engine, lines up the tube well drill over the offerings and releases a lever that brings an iron cylinder crashing into the earth, turning a parcel of India's fertile breadbasket into Swiss cheese.

"Business is growing by the year," says Kumar. "But we've placed about as many tube wells as we can in this area." As the water table in Punjab drops dangerously low farmers across the state are investing heavily -- and often going into debt -- to bore deeper wells and install more powerful pumps. On either side of Kumar's drill the calm beauty of emerald rice patties belies a quiet catastrophe brewing hundreds of feet beneath the surface. A prayer might be this region's best chance for survival.

India's groundwater woes are, in places, at crisis levels. But the problem is not confined to a few corners of the subcontinent; groundwater depletion is a major threat to food security and economic stability in China, the US, Mexico, Spain and parts of North Africa -- just to name a few. All of these regions are grappling with the problems inherent in extracting groundwater from deep below the earth's surface

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