Water may be the real problem

Source: "Water for farming: Running dry," The Economist, September 18th 2008.

"(A)s the world’s population grows and incomes rise, farmers will—if they use today’s methods—need a great deal more water to keep everyone fed: 2,000 more cubic kilometres a year by 2030, according to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a research centre, or over a quarter more than they use today. Yet in many farming regions, water is scarce and likely to get scarcer as global warming worsens. The world is facing not so much a food crisis as a water crisis, argues Colin Chartres, IWMI’s director-general."

Comment: As in the case of energy efficiency, there is one strategy that has a couple of benefits. If we were to eat more vegetable protein and less animal protein, we would save a lot of agricultural water, and those of us living in fat societies would also be healthier.

Of course, as water becomes more scarce, farmers will must and will use more water efficient technologies. The Israelis have decades of experience in water saving agriculture, including water harvesting technologies.

Still, given the inertia of political systems, I fear water wars in some areas that are already "tinder boxes" in both senses of the term. JAD