Water: Essential for Life, Including Food Production
On March 22nd, World Water Day is celebrated and was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in 1993. However, the relationship of this liquid with human life goes beyond simple ingestion and also involves food production .
Water crisis
Each place has a different rainfall index, that is, the volume of rain varies according to several factors that include, in addition to geography, the presence or absence of natural vegetation, the impact of human action, water treatment, among others. When thinking about human intervention, another recurring word is water scarcity. “Based on deforestation in biomes, soil degradation processes, air and water pollution, all conditions compromise river basins that are essential for human consumption, increasing damage to health”, explains Pedro Jacobi, senior professor of the Program of Postgraduate Studies in Environmental Science at the Institute of Energy and Environment.
The public authorities are also responsible for this impact: the poor quality of river waters due to lack of domestic sewage treatment and occupation of water sources, lack of planning for the construction of new reservoirs, lack of investment to reduce losses and lack of of institutional coordination are some points listed by the professor.
Water and food
Water is intrinsically linked to agri-food systems, as food production depends on a good amount of irrigation and even water itself for other processes. In Brazil, Jacobi comments that, as most agricultural land is irrigated seasonally, depending on rainfall, situations of water scarcity resulting from climate change are increasingly worrying.
According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) , the agricultural sector was responsible for 97.4% of total water consumption in Brazil in 2017. “The agricultural sector constantly seeks high productivity, which promotes the expansion of crops such as of soybeans and corn and spaces destined for livestock farming, demanding the expansion of the agricultural frontier to regions such as the Amazon and the Cerrado”, says the professor. The consequence of this is deforestation and forest fires, which not only compromise the region, but also many other places that depend on rainfall.
The consequences of these problems affect both the quantity and quality of water, which, in turn, directly affects food production, with consequences for socially vulnerable populations. “Family farmers are the hardest hit, with the decline in the quality of pastures and agricultural production, generating debt that makes it difficult to develop the next plantations”, explains Jacobi.
Thirst and hunger
The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 aims to “ensure the availability and sustainable management of drinking water and sanitation for all”. Water is a universal right recognized by the UN, but it is not fully fulfilled. “There is a fact that we cannot fail to look at: water insecurity is closely related to food insecurity, that is, there is a significant portion of the Brazilian population that is hungry and thirsty simultaneously, according to a report by the Brazilian Research Network in Sovereignty and Food Security ”, highlights the professor.
To try to control the situation, Jacobi says that Brazil will need to expand food stocks and favor crops that are more resistant to droughts, due to climate change, in addition to spreading the water, energy and food nexus, since water is a structuring axis . “From there, it is understood that water governance and management must be integrated with other sectors due to its fundamental role in food production and energy guarantee due to the importance of hydroelectricity in the country.”