Dear Colleagues,
Many thanks for sending this interesting Draft V0.
First of all, I want to congratulate HPLE for dealing with this substantial topic. As mentioned in your introduction, we should consider this Draft as a startpoint for further improvements. Please, read my comments/remarks under this aspect. I would distinguish the comments in general remarks and some minor comments. My comments will mainly underline the importance of research in the field of plant breeding for a sustainable water management and for its significance for developing countries.
Let me start with some general remarks:
1. First of all, to include in the topic of food security is very useful and laudable. Water is for me the most important food and nutrient. If I consider the title of the paper, I expect the text-proportion between water and food of about 1:1. But water is considered in the documents as the most important prerequisite to produce food. Therefore I would propose to change the title into:
„Water for food security“ (s. also headline to 3.5.1 on p. 66 in your draft)
2. At the end of Introduction (p. 10), I miss a clear statement of the objective of the paper.
Furthermore, specific recommendations for policy and practice should be given. I miss some challenges for science/research for a more efficient use of water, e.g. as objective for plant breeding. Plant breeding should be considered as the starting point for the human food chain and there is a large potential for a more efficient water use (e.g. see SCAR 2008; The Royal Society 2009; Reynolds 2010; Newman et al. 2011; Flachowsky et al. 2013). The paper should not be only a report/description of the present stage of water (miss)management, it should also mention/demonstrate real challenges for science and motivate the policy for adequate scientific projects, e.g. as formulated/proposed by the Royal Society (RS; 2009) some years ago. Potentials of plant breeding incl. biotechnology to increase drought tolerance and to improve water efficiency are described by many authors, e.g. such as Cominelli and Tonelli (2010), Reynolds (2010), Newman et al. (2011) and Deikman (2012).
3. p.27, 2. Improved Water Management…, This chapter should contain clear challenges for science/research (esp. plant breeding: Increase of efficiency of water use by plants, Effects in C3 and/or C4-plants; Influence of water household of plants; Mechanism for more efficient water use in plant metabolism, consequences of expected climate change). RS (2009) spent much attention to the more efficient use of „limited“ natural resources such as water, fuel, arable land, some minerals etc. and an maximal use of „unlimited“ natural resources, such as sunlight/energy, carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the air as plant nutrients.
4. p.29. l. 43: Which types of research to you propose in the case of water productivity in livestock (see also p. 78; l. 5-7)?
There exist many papers about the requirements for drinking water of various animal species/categories (e.g. Meyer et al. 2004 or Nutrient Requirements of food producing animals by various scientific societies; such as NRC or GfE; which include information about water intake and water quality) or on global scale (e.g. Schlink et al. 2010). Much more water as for drinking by animals is needed for feed production (about or more than 1 m3 per kg dry matter).
5. p. 45, l. 44 ff.: There are some new knowledge/developments in the case of global phosphorus availability. Scholz and Wellmer (2013) used a more dynamic model to calculate the global P-resources and came to the conclusion that P is much longer available (about 1 000 years) than expected previously. Similar conclusions were drawn by the US Department of geological resources some years ago.
6. Subchapter 3.3.3 deals with „The role of the private sector….“, but I miss a similar subchapter for the role of the public (research) sector for a sustainable water management.
I beliefe that the private research sector will presently not be able to contribute substantial to an improved and sustainable water management in the field of plant breeding. More public investment (including public-private collaboration) will be needed to make this new `genetic revolution` beneficial for all people including people from developing countries (see Flachowsky 2013).
I underline public activities in this field, because I don´t believe that private investments would be able to overcome the present imbalance between Planet (P) – People (P) – Profit (P; three P-concept) under consideration of ethical aspects and to contribute substantially to a more balanced 3P-concept (see IUCN 2005; Casabona et al. 2010; Makkar and Ankers 2014). Presently, we have a strong exploitation of natural resources (Planet) and population (People) to make more (and more) Profit.
Some minor comments:
1. Abbreviations should be explained after first use of the full term (e.g. FSN in 1 Water for food security and nutrition (FSN) on p. 4
2. p. 8: Water use in % of total water need of various users should be mentioned in the introduction
3. p. 8: in l. 5; Table 1 is mentioned, but I could not find any Table 1, which shows the water per capita in the future. Table 1 (p. 31) shows the „Global survey of groundwater irrigation“
4. p.11, Figure 1 is not full clear to me. Some percentages of water use may be helpful (e.g. in text of p. 13).
5. p. 28, Figure 9: Apart from yield per ha; t water/t grain yield should be also given (or in a separate table).
6. p. 38, Table 4: Where from (references) are the data for water productivity of beef? Which yield did you use for calculation in the case of beef (e.g. body weight gain, slaughtering body weight gain, meat yield, edible protein or what)? Further animal yields (e.g. milk, pork, chicken for fattening and eggs) should be included in this Table or a table for food of animal origin should be introduced.
7. p. 47; 2.5.1. Water footprint: I would propose to include a table of „Water footprints“ for some important feeds and food and also for some industrial products in the paper.
8. p. 48; 2.6. Policy implications: I would include a paragraph concerning „Support of public research for a more sufficient use of water by plants with the objective of more and sustainable water efficiency to produce valuable phytogenic biomass“
9. p. 69; 3.6 The right to water and the right to food, but in 3.6.1; you started with the right to food, followed with the right to water (3.6.2). I think, it should be other way round.
Conclusion
The paper should more focus on development and research for a more sustainable water management. The authors should give clear recommendations to policy makers for further research. Plant breeding by public research with the objective of more efficient water use to produce high amounts of available biomass for more people with less limited resources (such as water) can be considered as one of the main aims for the future in this field.
The paper is mainly focussed to the policy, but we should also focus on more long-term public research to the policy in order to contribute or to solve the problems of water scarcity in many regions of the world. A lower need of water by feed and food producing plants (e.g. reduction of water need per kg dry matter from about 1 to 0.8 or 0.6 m3 per kg dry matter) may substantial contribute to overcome this global problem (also in developing countries, if such seeds are available in developing countries).
Progresses in plant breeding to more efficient plants in using limited natural resources (incl. water) and plants with high and stable yields which sustainable contribute to stabilize human nutrition with food of plant and animal origin could be considered as the starting point for an improved food chain and to overcome imbalances present in the 3P-concept.
Some references mentioned in the comments above:
Casabona, C.M.R., Epifanio, L.E.S., Cirion, A.E. (2010) Global food security: Ethical and legal challenges. Wageningen Academic. Publ., Wageningen, The Netherlands, 532 p.
Comibelli, E., Tonelli, C. (2010) Transgenic crops coping with water scarcity. New Biotechnology 27, 473-477
Deikman, J., Petracek, M., Heard, J.E. (2012) Drought tolerance through biotechnology: Improving translation from the laboratory to farmers´field. Current Opinion in Biotechnology 23, 243-250
Flachowsky, G. (2008) What do animal nutritionists expect from plant breeding? Outlook on Agriculture 37, 95-103
Flachowsky, G. (2013, ed.) Animal nutrition with transgenic plants. CAB International, Vol. 1; Biotechnology Series, Wallingford, UK, and Boston, USA, 234 p.
Flachowsky, G., Meyer, U., Gruen, M. (2013) Plant and animal breeding as starting points for sustainable agriculture. In: Lichtfouse, E. (ed.) Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 12, Springer Science-Business Media, Dordlecht, Netherlands, pp. 201-224
Makkar, H.P.S., Ankers, P. (2014) Towards sustainable animal diets: A survey based study. Animal Feed Science and Technol. (in press)
Meyer, U., Everinghoff, M., Gädeken, D., Flachowsky, G. (2004) Investigations on the water intake of lactating dairy cows. Livestock Prod. Sci. 90, 117-121
Newman, J.A., Anand, H., Hal, M., Hant, S., Gedalof, Z. (2011) Climate Change Biology. CAB International, Wallingford, UK, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 289 p.
Reynolds, M.P. (2010) Climate Change and Crop Production. CAB International, Wallingford, UK, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 292 p.
SCAR (EU Commission on Agricultural Research; 2008) New challenges for agricultural research: Climate change, rural development, agricultural knowledge systems. The 2nd SCAR Foresight Exercise, Brussles, December 2008, 112 pp.
Schlink, A.A., Nguyen, M.-L., Viljoen, G.J. (2010) Water requirements for livestock production: A global perspective. Revue Scientifique et Technique-Office International des Epizooties 29, 603-619
Scholz, R.W., Wellmer, F.-H. (2013) Approaching a dynamic view on the availability of mineral sources: What we may learn from the case of phosphorus. Global Environmental Change. 23 (11), 11-27
The Royal Society (RS; 2009) Reaping the benefits: Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. RS policy document 11/09, issued Oct. 2009 RS 1608, ISBN: 978-0-85403-784-1
Dear Colleagues,
I hope that you may understand my ideas mentioned above. Please ask me, if you have further questions.
Best regards
Gerhard Flachowsky
Prof. Dr. G. Flachowsky
Senior Visiting Scientist
Institute of Animal Nutrition
Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute (FLI)
Federal Research Institute for Animal Health
Bundesallee 50
38116 Braunschweig
Germany
Gerhard Flachowsky