United Nation’s World Water Day falls on 22 Mar 2012.
This year’s theme for UN World Water Day is “Water and Food
security”. UN is educating the public on the link between water usage and food
production. “The world is thirsty because we are hungry”
There
are some educational clips (available for download) in the UN website:
From
the clips, UN informs that “A person needs to drink 2 to 4 litres of water a
day. BUT we virtually eat 2000 to 5000 litres of water (embedded in our daily
food) !
Producing
1 kg of wheat requires 1,500 litres of water, but producing 1kg of beef
requires 15,000 litres of water (10 times as much!)
UNFAO
states that “Agriculture accounts for 70% of total water usage”.
& “90%
of our total water consumption goes to produce today’s Food. ”
It
takes 1000 times more water to feed the human population then it does to
satisfy it’s thirst.”
……..
The UN website also has some materials about water footprint
of products.
Under
the “Education Material” there is a “Water for Food Wall Chart” which shows how
much water is needed to produce various food that we eat.
……..
UN recommends
the following:
“ When a billion people in the world already
live in chronic hunger and water resources are under pressure we cannot pretend
the problem is ‘elsewhere’. Coping with population growth and ensuring access to
nutritious food to everyone call for a series of actions we can all help with:
- follow a
healthier, sustainable diet;
(i.e. Eat more vegetables, eat less meat)
- consume less water-intensive products;
- Reduce food wastage: 30% of the food produced worldwide is never eaten and the water used to produce it
is definitively lost!
- produce more food, of better
quality, with less water.
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