Virtual Water ‘Trade’: Can Farmers Continue to Keep us Water Secure?

The talk will show that farmers manage 90% of the water used by society. In Europe this is almost all green water, the water in the root zone. Worldwide farmers, however, use a lot of blue water – diverted from rivers and pumped from the ground – for irrigated cropping. The last half century has witnessed unprecedented increases in the productivity of water by farmers in the UK and other OECD countries. Farmers in the BRICS economies have also achieved huge increases in the productivity of water. As a consequence, the world’s trebled population is still water and food secure. Local water security has also been achieved by virtual water ‘trade’, which will become even more important as populations increase. The ways that farmers can contribute to future water security by achieving further increases in water productivity – while improving the stewardship of the resource – will be highlighted. The problem of the non-valuation of water at any stage in the food supply chain will be noted. And the movement to develop shared values on water across the supply chains by farmers, the ag-corporates, the food processors, the traders – brand and non-brand –, the super-markets, investors and consumers will be discussed.

Tony Allan [BA Durham 1958, PhD London 1971] heads the London Water Research Group at King's College London and SOAS. He specialises in the analysis of water resources in semiarid regions and on the role of global systems in ameliorating local and regional water deficits. In his early career he was concerned with hydrological and environmental issues but gradually turned his attention to the social and political when it became evident that environmental science could not explain why people manage water as they do. He pointed out that the water-short economies achieve water and food security mainly by importing water-intensive food commodities. He identified the concept of virtual water. He provides advice to governments and agencies especially in the Middle East on water policy and water policy reform. His ideas on water security are set out in The Middle East water question: hydropolitics and the global economy and in a new book entitled Virtual water. In 2008 he was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize in recognition of his contribution to water science and water policy.