Water, water everywhere. Nor any drop to… give cattle, pigs and humans?
In Andalucia, Spain, last week, I pondered how water is fundamental to food and civilisation. Marvelling at the Alhambra palaces, water gardens and terraced horticulture, one salutes the brilliance of ancient Arab water engineering a millennium ago. It enabled palaces on the hill and arid Vega plains below to bloom. They still grow olives, asparagus, almonds and maize, although drought threatens.
Ancient Arab skill channelled water from where it was plentiful to where it wasn’t. It’s remarkable, but so is the modern Chinese rehydration of its Loess plateau. There, reforestation is regenerating arid lands and rebuilding soil structures abandoned 1,000 years ago. The thinking is in some respects the same. Humans depend on ecosystems and must enhance, not destroy, them.
“Spain is our canary. We import its water as fruit and veg”
In the ancients’ case, water management involved geometry, masonry and gravity. Today, when scientific knowledge is infinitely more sophisticated, we’re painfully recognising food systems have undervalued food-water-soil connections.
For more than a century in Europe, we’ve assumed water. Today, we must reorder food culture to conserve and treasure it. Water-fragile Spain is our canary. We import its fragile water as fruit and veg.
Water is power - it is food. Last week, data emerged about the sudden drop in European breeding pig herds since 2011. The dreadful US drought effect is emerging. Crops grown to feed animals and to service the cheap meat culture become expensive. Yet retailers still insist on cheap meats from suppliers, citing consumer price sensitivity. Result: farm margins go pear-shaped.
Water analysts have been warning our modern system is fragile for years, calling for water and carbon-thrifty food re-engineering.
My advice to the new UK secretary of state is simple. Powerful forces call for business-as-usual but you should go beyond the Green Food Project advice and start planning a British food system to prevent water stress. See food as embedded water. Start preparing consumers for big change. Let’s relish and conserve our rain!
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