Study Urges Changes In Food Production To Protect Water Supplies

[hatrack]

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — A report released Tuesday warned that if more is not done to reduce the amount of water used to produce food, the effort to reduce the number of the world's malnourished people would be jeopardized.

In the report, released by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) at the 12th meeting of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development in New York, the scarcity of water was found to have a direct relation on the proper feeding of the world's people.

Titled "Water More Nutrition Per Drop," the study was launched by Sweden's government and produced with SIWI and the International Water Management Institute. "Water scarcity is a harsh reality that affects billions of people in many parts of the world," said Lena Sommestad, Sweden's environment minister.

EDIT

Its key finding is that consumers, not producers, are driving global food production. That, the authors said, is causing more water to be used up as producers seek to meet demand. It takes 550 liters (145 gallons) of water to produce enough flour for one loaf of bread, a fraction of the 7,000 liters (1,849 gallons) used to produce 100 grams (3 1/2 ounces) of beef. "An overriding challenge today is to identify the path toward sustainable consumption and production patterns and to design incentives and other policy measures that can help us achieve these goals" said Jan Lundqvist of the Stockholm institute, one of the report's authors."

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-21/s_23025.asp

[amandabeech]

1. The water problem will be increasingly severe,

but I wish that theses articles would point out that the amount of water on the planet is not growing, but the number of people really is. If we cannot stabilize, and perhaps gradually reduce through decreasing birthrates, the world population, I see little hope that we will be able to secure sufficient clean freshwater resources for everyone. That is, unless there is some miraculous discovery in the field of desalinization.