Hidden water

If water shortage is the world’s biggest threat, then better understanding of its use is literally vital.

So, could you estimate how many litres of water it takes to produce the food you consume in a year ? 100 tonnes ? 1,000 tonnes ?

The actual answer is nearer 1 million tonnes or 1,000 million litres !

The institution of Chemical Engineers has now advocated the imposition of water footprinting to make everyone more aware.

I proposed exactly this some years ago as part of an environment labelling initiative to complement existing nutrition labelling. I wonder whether the food industry will decide to act this time. Or does it have too many other things on its plate ?