Water supply nearing limit for food production

If everyone becomes a vegetarian, the world has enough water to grow the food needed to sustain a global population of eight billion people.
While Alexander Zehnder isn't advocating a mass renunciation of steak and ribs, the water and energy export told the Global Business Forum Friday that food choices - both what we grow and what we consume - have huge impacts.
"I think we can still have the good food that we are used to," Zehnder, a visiting professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said. "We have to cut back a little bit on the meat."
With a world population headed to eight or nine billion, he said, thought must be given to how enough produce to feed them all and water is a key component - both as part of the problem and part of the solution.
If everyone were vegetarian, there would be enough water to produce the necessary food, he said.
With 20 per cent of the average diet being meat, Zehnder said "we start to get in trouble in the next 10 to 15 years," adding meat requires 10 times more water per unit of energy produced compared to plants.
Zehnder painted a global picture illustrated with the world's reliance on five countries, including Canada, to supply them with food and questionable growing options related more to market concerns than climate and soil.
Using Egypt as an example, where high food prices helped fuel anger against the former government and led to its ouster.
Zehnder pointed out that the country has taken to growing wheat, calling it "the dumbest thing they can do there," given its water supply.
But part of that decision relates to giving the country some independence from the global food market, he said.
"Everyone in the world has to have access to the five countries," he added, referring to the U.S., Australia, Argentina, France and Canada which are basically the ones providing food to everyone else.
While shifting patterns will see more countries with not enough water to produce sufficient food, he said "even in 20 years, it will be the same five countries."
Increasing the nutritional value of the food produced will also be a benefit, Zehnder said.
Stanford Blade, the CEO of Alberta Innovates - Bio Solutions, said improving technology will make a big difference moving forward, both in the amount of food being produced and its nutritional makeup.
"There have been remarkable gains in many parts of the world because of technology," he said, pointing to transgenics as one example. "You're going to see more and more around nutrient content."
Zehnder pointed out that while agriculture uses a significant amount of water to produce food, "it's not the bad guy in the room."
Most of the water used to grow wheat, canola, peas or corn is socalled "green water," he said, water that sits in the soil and can't be used by anyone or anything else if not taken up by roots.
While there is often talk of water shortages in Alberta, Zehnder said if water in the rivers aren't used to grow food, "it flows down to Saskatchewan. Why not use the water and make something tangible out of it."
Blade said Alberta is in a good position to continue feeding the world because we have land and we have water."


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