April 20, 2004 at the 12th meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 12), experts warn that if more is not done to use less water while concurrently producing more food, the international community will face great difficulties in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of undernourished people...

The report “Water – More Nutrition Per Drop” was initiated by the Swedish Government and was produced through a unique collaboration of leading international water experts...

“Water scarcity is a harsh reality that affects billions of people in many parts of the world,” says Lena Sommestad, Swedish Minister for the Environment. “Attitudes to water development and management must be addressed and changed if we are to reduce the number of malnourished people. We need practical solutions that benefit poor farmers as well as global solutions that address trade barriers and agricultural subsidies”.

...

The recommendations include finding ways to produce more food using less water and ensuring that these new technologies and methods are made widely available to groups that range from farmers to policy makers...With massive urbanisation and increasing wealth, food preferences are changing with significant increases in the demand for meat and dairy products. It takes 550 liters of water to produce enough flour for one loaf of bread. This is a fraction of the up to 7000 liters of water that is used in developed countries to produce 100 grams of beef.

“An overriding challenge today is to identify the path towards sustainable consumption and production patterns and to design incentives and other policy measures that can help us achieve these goals,” “Practical sustainable solutions mean balancing environmental, economic and social concerns”.

Production of food is a highly water-consuming activity. In developing countries agriculture accounts for 70-90% of available freshwater supplies “With prevailing land and water management practices, a balanced diet requires 1,200,000 litres of water per person per year (3287 liters per day) - 70 times more than the 50 liters per day used for an average households domestic needs,” she said.

http://www.siwi.org/press/presrel_04_CSD_Eng.htm

http://www.siwi.org/downloads/More_Nutrition_Per_Drop.pdf

As far as future strategies are concerned, my view is that we shouldn't drive four wheel drives on treacherous salt lakes. Better steer a different route in a car that's designed better for economical travel. A good analogy would be with managing total transport fuel demand by BOTH improving engine performance (hybrid cars),AND encouraging alternatives (public transport) AND being alert to left-field opportunities (internet work instread of travel to meetings) AND realising the challenge is so great no one aspect is the solution.

In the previous post, I linked to reports that advocate this kind of strategy. Attention to efficiency of production AND total demand is all part of the big picture. For brevity (350 words!) I deleted some points that cover several of the concerns previously raised - but they are there in the links. I'll let those Swedish reports, which are very good, speak for themselves.

David Tribe

Thanks, Albie. Any agro in my post was a consequence of yours being too close to Ludwigs and being tainted by association. I suspect you would be aperson with whom it would be far from a chore to be stuck in a small boat with for a day or two.

The problem with Ludwig is that his presence here is not to find any solutions but, rather, as palliative treatment for conditions that are limited to the inside of his head. He is a classic blog stalker who's primary aim is to obscure any contrary view with an overburden of verbage.

Isn’t this Perseus character a wonderful piece of work.

Just pure personal vitriol. No attempt whatsoever to address any of the points of debate that I have raised on this thread. No attempt in this post to be involved in sensible discussion, like David Tribe, or to provide anything at all related to the subject.

“Any agro in my post was a consequence of yours being too close to Ludwigs and being tainted by association”.

Funny!! I hope he is just a tad embarrassed by that.

“….obscure any contrary view with an overburden of verbage.”

Stuff that the poor soul seems to have absolutely no understanding of.

I asked him, on two occasions on a different thread, to indicate that he had any understanding of sustainability. Even that really basic request was too hard for him. He has offered no response whatsoever.

I have tried to entertain debate with him on his very often-repeated ideas of a separate state for farmers, but he won’t or can’t even address the broadest questions. This seems to be his passion in life… but he won’t be drawn into discussion!! Extraordinary.

Sustainability and regional vs centralised governance have everything to do with water policy and increased productivity. It just beats me completely why he so averse to sensible discussion on these issues.

Maybe he should do some self-tutoring on debating skills. A good first step would be to examine how Ludwig and d, who have some quite strongly opposing views, have conducted an amicable discussion on this thread.

Well at least he provides two functions; to mark the end of the spectrum for all OLO correspondents as far as polarised, hateful and deliberately offensive responses go, and to provide ongoing entertainment value.

He writes; “It really is a fascinating place outside the square, don't you think?”

Isn’t it now. So perhaps he might try thinking outside the square more than once in a blue moon.

In the quiet North Shore suburb in which I reside, a month back one environmentalist group had bought up billboard space on a nearby bus stand, lamenting land clearing and asking for support. It dawned on me then how great the divide between country and city truly is. Geography text-books and green/left groups spout a pseudo-religious nonesence when it comes to environmental issues, and most are none the wiser. What makes it even worse is that while most religions would say that the existance of man is good, the Dark Greens (to borrow a phrase I heard from Professor Geoffrey Blainey) have a religion which preaches the evilness of man, agriculture and progress in general.

As a resident of Sydney, I understand how much water is wasted from poor infrastructure. It makes me wonder whenever I observe water exiting bores on the Great Artesian Basin (at about 75 degrees to touch) or look over the irrigation canals around the MIA, whether covering said canals would do much good. I know most water is piped out of rivers, but the many canals we have must surely be leeching water.

The above discussion, especially from David and Perseus - even if he does think I like rural Australian only because they can help defeat Labor in the cities - has been most educational. It's good to have some experts talking on OLO for a change, especially when it comes to water.

On an aside - Perseus you might know something about this - has the movement to consolidate and sure-up the bores in the Great Artesian Basin been finished yet? I heard something about the funding being withheld by the State Government and subsequently the Feds. Could you update?

DFXK, if you want answers doctored and filtered to what would please you, Perseus might be the right one to ask.
With CSIRO, and others, being subjected to such constraints it is getting more difficult to get honestly independent and peer-reviewed scientifically credible answers.
However, if you really do want an independent assessment, perhaps you might like to approach the Great Artesian Basin Consultative Council.
Fred Whitehouse, then of the University of Queensland in 1954, noted that the rate of extraction from the Great Artesian Basin peaked at (either 1911 or 1917. I can't remember which and he is not around to answer).
Rate of recharge is not all that rapid - perhaps three million years by the time it gets to places like Olympic Dam in South Australia.
In 1998 an assessment of about $300 million was estimated, needed over some fifteen years, to lessen outflow from the basin by fifty per cent.
No doubt some progress is being made in minimising waste from the Basin, but I doubt if it is adequate.