40% of UK’s Food imports from Areas of High Water Risk

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40% of UK’s Food imports from Areas of High Water Risk

WWF research indicates that 40% of the UK's imports come from areas of high water risk

Globally, the agricultural sector consumes about 70% of the planet's accessible freshwater - more than twice that of industry, and dwarfing municipal use. The2015 Global Risks Reportof the World Economic Forum ranked water the greatest potential economic impact risk.

One of the primary actions seen over the past decade has been the considerable growth of sustainability standards in agriculture - the Better Cotton Initiative, Bonsucro, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, Round Table on Responsible Soy, Organic, Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance.

All of these standards touch upon water issues, as do practically all agricultural sustainability standards, but to what extent are they mitigating supply chain water risk?

Are organic strawberry producers in California insulated against the ongoing and largest drought in 1,200 years due to their certification? Are Rainforest Alliance certified coffee producers in Colombia insulated from flooding risks due to theirs?

No standard or certification can reasonably be expected to fully mitigate water risks. That said, agricultural sustainability standards do have a range of requirements that progresively address water risks to varying degrees.

Water stewardship

Traditional approaches have revolved around the notion of water management. Ensure your irrigation is efficient, minimise your chemical and pesticide inputs, obey the law and ensure you have a strip of vegetation beside any river you might border. In other words, ensure that your farm does not adversely affect others.

What has been missing is more robust thinking about how others affect you and, in turn, what actions can address such catchment-based risks. This gap led to the emergence of a concept now commonly referred to as water stewardship.

Customising solutions

Water risks are far from ubiquitous. From crop to crop, region to region and time to time, water risks are constantly in flux, making responses a complex challenge. It makes little sense to require highly efficient irrigation in an area that is water abundant; water quality concerns are less of a business risk when you are the only operator in a catchment. Accordingly, solutions must be customised.

A range of innovative practices suggest there are considerable opportunities for learning between standards. These include encouraging collaboration between standards as well as with businesses and NGOs to establish more efficient, effective solutions and developing tailored guidance using a risk-based approach via tools such as the Water Risk Filter either within standards or in addition to standards. This makes sense especially for crops that only face water risks in certain regions.

For crops that commonly rely upon extensive irrigation or for those crops that are broadly exposed to water risks because of where they are grown, strengthening a standard's requirements may also be worthwhile, especially requirements that address critical water risks.

Source: The Guardian


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