WaterMicronWorld,Ltd
WaterMicronWorld,Ltd
AGRICULTURE:
Agriculture is easily the world’s heaviest consumer of water, most of which is used for irrigation. It takes around 2500 kcal per day to meet one adult’s energy requirements. One kilogram of bread contains around 3500 kcal, and it takes roughly 1000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of breadunder optimum growing conditions. Based on this assumption, it takes around 260 m3 of water to feed one person for one year with a vegetarian diet. The more meat contained in a person’s diet, the higher the associated water consumption. When meat accounts for 20% of a person’s diet, twice as
much water is consumed for its production.1 This calculation does not take into account the fact that conditions for food production are seldom ideal.
Much of the water used is wasted due to crop failures and losses in irrigation. If production losses ari factored in as well, 550 m3 of water are required to feed one person a purely vegetarian diet for one year. Because rainfall is distributed so unevenly, not all
countries are able to produce enough food for their own population. Many governments therefore have to resort to importing food, which in some cases accounts for up to 35% of all imports. The situation becomes even more critical for these countries.
if food prices are forced higher by adverse weather conditions or competition from biodiesel
production. WaterMicronWorl,Ltd www.watermicronworld.com
farmland registered only an insignificant increase worldwide in the period 1960-2000. As a consequence, the area of cropland required per person has fallen from around 0.45-0.25 hectares during this period.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
