An alliance of UK engineering bodies has warned that the UK’s reliance on water embedded in imported food is exacerbating water shortages in other countries. Global Water Security: an engineering perspective is a 42-page report which stresses the UK must take the lead by managing its own water resources sustainably. It claims that two-thirds of the UK’s water footprint is imported in the form of food, energy and other goods that require water for production from countries that are facing water shortages.
Prof Peter Guthrie, chairman of the working group that compiled the report for Engineering the Future Alliance, has questioned the import fresh produce from Africa despite no mention being made of horticulture in his report. He said: If the water crisis becomes critical, it will pose a serious thereat to the UK’s future development because of the impact it would have on our access to vital resources. Food prices would sky-rocket and economic growth would suffer. To prevent this we must recognise how the UK’s water footprint is having an impact on global water scarcity. We should ask whether it is right to import green beans or even roses from a water-stressed region like Kenya.”
Although the Fresh Produce Consortium has welcomed the authors’ recommendation that engineers engage with policy makers, growers and the food industry, it is disappointed of the lack of specific mention of fresh produce. Ceo Nigel Jenney said: “FPC will taking this up with the alliance’s steering group on global water security and advising the group of the importance of our sector in ensuring food security and a healthy diet. There have been a number of studies that have demonstrated that it is not necessarily the case that imported fresh produce has a larger environmental footprint than the same produce grown in the UK. The fresh produce industry is putting in place measures to achieve food production in a low-carbon world, calculating greenhouse gas emissions, reducing excess packaging and increasing re-use and recycling, as well as reducing food waste and recovering energy.
“We recognise that there are some tough challenges ahead to continue to deliver sustainable food production, but we need to keep in perspective the fresh produce industry’s water consumption in relation to greater usage by other industry sectors.”
