Manufacturing
Agrifood’s thirst for knowledge
Between climate change, drought and the threat of food insecurity, it makes sense that water stewardship should be a major focus for the agrifood sector. But beyond the headline worries, what will this new reality look like in practice? How can technology help? And to what extent is collaboration important to ensure that every every watershed user gains from the turn to sustainability. Andrea Valentino tackles all these questions, getting help from Adrian Sym of the Alliance for Water Stewardship and Alfredo Zein of Danone.
very year, Ancient Egyptians interrupted their familiar rhythm to praise Hapi. Popular up and down the kingdom, and known as the Lord of the Fish and Birds of the Marshes, this androgynous figure with a prominent belly was worshipped as the god of the annual Nile flood. Armed with amulets, peasants would throw their offerings into the river, asking Hapi to grant them a good flood. Without one, they knew, their families would starve, something made explicit in surviving Egyptian prayers. ‘Hail to thee, O Nile!’ went one. ‘Who manifests thyself over this land, and comes to give life to Egypt! Come and prosper!’ Food has always been impossible without water – and what the Ancient Egyptians understood thousands of years before Christ, countless other civilisations have themselves embraced. The Ganges
E
remains a focal point for millions of Hindus, while Buddhists see water as the purest form of food, needed for all others and freely available to all. Yet if the spirit of Hapi endures, not least on £5 Egyptian banknotes, the relationship between food and water is getting more and more strained. As agrifood has ballooned into a $8.67tn business, water consumption has too, with more than 70% of the world’s freshwater resources now deployed for agricultural purposes. It goes without saying, meanwhile, that any disruption to global water supplies could make the worries of the Ancient Egyptians look mild, as farmland dries up and supermarket shelves go empty.
70%
The percentage of global freshwater resources now deployed for
agricultural purposes. World Bank
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
75
Olga Strel/
Shutterstock.com
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