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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Importing Food Means Exporting Drought
  • Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:58:05 -0700


The growing methods we promote use far less water per pound produced.


Published on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Importing Food Means Exporting Drought
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/20/11085http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/20/11085
We need to change the way we eat if we are to tackle the looming catastrophe
of water scarcity

by Tom MacMillan

If you want proof the world has a water problem you're better treading the
damp summer pavements of the City than the parched bed of the Aral Sea.

Goldman Sachs says water is the next oil and has bullish investment trends to
prove it. For the rest of us a water boom spells trouble: investors can smell
scarcity a mile off and, however much money they pump into managing it, the
last result they'll want is abundance.

It will be our plates, not our rates, that bear the brunt of water shortage.
As today's report from WWF spells out, the amount we spew out of taps is
piddling compared with what it takes to make stuff and, especially, to grow
our food.

The volumes involved are staggering: the 200 billion litres a second it takes
to grow the world's food is like gulping down the Amazon day in, day out. In
the UK, we use about 58 bathtubs full of water every day, both directly and
in the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and 62% of that comes from other
countries. We're eating dry Lake Naivasha in Kenya and Australia's Murray
River, as well as running down our own reserves.

But our water problem isn't just about the amount we use. Quality is as
crucial as quantity. Whether water is clean, dirty or briny, comes from
groundwater or from rainfall, and its whereabouts, can make all the
difference.

To tackle water scarcity we need to remind ourselves why it is a problem. The
most obvious reason is that we just can't keep using water at current rates.
In practice, running low on a resource can mean that rich places like the UK
barely notice while poor people take the hit.

But we've been there already with water - other countries have suffered from
scarcity for decades - and we're now at the point where even the big-name
companies that feed us are feeling the squeeze and getting seriously worried
about the security of their supply chains.

But, just because this problem is now affecting rich countries, it doesn't
mean we'll carry our fair share of the burden. So the second problem is
injustice, destroying other people's livelihoods as we try to sort out our
own supply problems. Just as pulling the rug from under the people who grow
our airfreighted fruit and veg due to concerns over air miles is a problem,
so too for water-scarce regions.

Then there are ecological consequences of water scarcity: desiccation and
poor water quality can destroy species and ecosystems.

So, how to fix the water crisis? The good news is that we're not short of
opportunities. The bad news is that many just swap one problem for another.
The simplest technical fix is to use water more efficiently. The huge gap
between the leakiest and most watertight irrigation systems shows we could
get plenty more crop per drop.

More ambitious is desalination - already big in the Middle East, on the up in
Spain and Australia, and plans are even afoot in London. The trouble with
turning seawater fresh is the cost in money, energy and greenhouse gas
emissions, not to mention the brine you're left with at the end.

The economist's fix is to put a price on water. That we need to value water
more is clear but everything hinges on how you go about it. Pricing water
doesn't work if people use it on the sly - there are around half a million
illegal wells in Spain alone - and it can push water out of reach of people
who most need it to those who can most afford it.

The foodie fix is to change what we eat. Meat is so thirsty that a vegetarian
uses about half the water of a carnivore. The fact is that we will have to
eat differently - the cost will force us to whether we want to or not. But if
we want to be ahead of the game, the devil is in the detail: crops such as
rice are heavy water users while extensive livestock can in fact tread quite
lightly. One crucial shift may be towards crops more amenable to rain-watered
farming, which uses only what is available. The fact that two-thirds of the
world's food isn't irrigated right now reminds us this isn't an impossible
dream.

Food is right at the heart of water scarcity but changing what we eat is just
one part of the solution. Unless we get better policies in place too, we're
likely to displace the problem instead of solving it, replacing irrigated
Spanish greenhouses that supply our winter salads with irrigated Spanish golf
courses.

So we need to do more with our food than simply eat a diet for a drier
planet: as customers, shareholders and concerned citizens, we need to
persuade food companies to put their political clout to good use, supporting
fair ways to govern water in the places that they buy from. That means
involving all water users, including those who can't pay for it, in setting
priorities and making sure that their needs and those of the environment are
met. It means valuing water, not merely as a commodity, but as the very stuff
of life.

Tom MacMillan is executive director of the Food Ethics Council, which earlier
this year published Water: the ethics of efficiency.




  • [Livingontheland] Importing Food Means Exporting Drought, Tradingpost, 11/20/2008

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