Research shows that it takes ...

Research shows that it takes 1100 liters of water to grow one kilo of rice through the traditional flood irrigation methods. The same kilo of rice can be grown with just 5 liters of water with Hydroponics technology. But, hydroponics requires substantial initial investment and a relatively complex technology. This high-tech will require maintence effort and a high skill level, which is simply not available with marginal farmers. The raw materials for hydroponics are also chemical nutrients which themselves will require great amounts of water and energy to produce. Therefore, there is the fundmental issue of scalability, in which hydroponics is not competitive. Therefore, the fresh water crisis will likely be mitigated by technologies that can co-exist with traditional methods.