Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

My contribution will center on Water and Sanitation,Drinking and Cooking Water plus women and girls the challenges the face especially in rural communities.

Water is every where in Cameroon but not all water is safe to drink, the responsibilities of policy makers in terms of the MGDs of the United Nations has not in any way favoured poor communities.

The Costly Bottle water which is purely business owned by multinational companies have taken over the idea for governemnts to provide affordable and sustainable drinking, cooking and washing water to the bigger part of the population and families living in rural communities.

This keeps the sanitary aspects of girls and women at the brink to health epidemics and nutritional uncertainties.

We have to roll back and providing for giant projects with pipe borne water that is costly free to poor communities and can reach communities where girls and women can endanger their lives travelling longer distances to fetch water or face rape cases.

Il est important de signaler que nous avons élaboré un  rapport sur la rareté de l'eau et la sécurité alimentaire au Maroc. Ce rapport a été validé lors d'une rencontre nationale en présence d’une délégation importante de la FAO et des différents représentants des organismes internationaux et des départements ministériels et des ONGs.

Le rapport V0 sur l’eau et la sécurité alimentaire, qui fait l’objet de cette consultation, constitue une plate forme pour identifier les principaux liens d’échanges entre LA SECURITE ALIMENTAIRE comme une priorité des nations, la nutrition  ET la pénurie de L’EAU qui devient  de plus en plus une vraie menace pour un grand nombre de pays notamment pour les pays d’Afrique et de l’Asie.  En général, le rapport constitue un modèle de réflexion sur l’identification de la problématique nourriture-eau dans les pays en voie de développement. Cependant, chaque pays constitue un cas particulier (modèle) dans la gestion de la rareté de l’eau et les efforts fournis dans l’économie de l’eau notamment dans l’agriculture.       

Le rapport a abordé la thématique d’une manière plus large. Les projections des indicateurs relatifs à la disponibilité de l’eau face aux besoins de la population (eau potable) et les besoins alimentaires donnent la vraie image de l’importance des risques et des menaces liés à une mauvaise gestion de l’eau à long terme. L’analyse doit focaliser sur la présentation des cas concrets dans les pays en voie de développement (économie de l’eau) et présenter les expériences réussies.

La sécurité alimentaire implique un échange commercial de produits agricoles, et un échange virtuel d'eau. Le commerce agricole a différentes interactions avec l'eau et la sécurité alimentaire, lesquelles varient pour les pays importateurs d'aliments, les pays exportateurs d'aliments, les pays pauvres en eau vis-à-vis des pays riches en eau. Pour cette partie, l’analyse des échanges des produits agricoles doit être faite à plusieurs niveaux et de différents angles (multidimensionnels) : bilan comptable des échanges, durabilité des ressources, la gouvernance, la gestion des bassins versant et la gestion des ressources souterraines en eau.  

Hi Joanna

As requested, I have had a quick look through this report. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would be a guide to what needs to be done, both nationally and internationally, to ensure water policy is part of the solution for food security rather than another problem area alongside land tenure and management, trade and competition policy, the legal environment, infrastructure,  gender opportunities etc inhibiting progress. Instead, it read like an inventory or catalogue of who thinks what about various aspects of water without a clear methodology to identify underlying issues worthy of priority attention.

To be useful, I feel a report of this nature should give guidance concerning what reforms are needed in the water space. I appreciate that is a huge task, particularly when the geographical focus is so broad but I do think there is scope to lay out what are the major problems around the countries of interest and then distil a framework that each country could assess itself against for potential reforms. Some assessment may need to be regional, certainly international and possibly catchment based to capture the areas where water is collected and flows rather than focus exclusively on where it is administered (ie national boundaries).

I am left floundering by this report when I try to answer the question what specific changes might be proposed to better enhance water management for food security. The list of recommended actions at the end of the report is too general to be useful and far too much space has been wasted in the report traversing the literature with little to show for the effort. There are some key aspects of water policy which have been addressed in Australia over the years that might help the assembly of a framework for international consideration. Unfortunately, they aren’t covered in Box 17. They include 1.Independent assessment of available surface and groundwater resources, 2.Planning and regulation of sustainable water extraction volumes, 3. Allocation of property rights to owners, either using historical, customary use as a guide or auction systems or a mixed system, 4. Pricing of water for extracted volumes and their delivery, 5. Trade (both within season and permanent) in water rights, 6. Monitoring and enforcement of property rights by relevant authorities and 7. A competition policy mechanism to address any anti-competitive behaviour surrounding potential concentration and distribution of water rights.

The Australian story is well covered in the publications of the National Water Resources Commission which should be available on-line. However, that organisation was scrapped in the 2014 Budget and I understand its responsibilities may be taken up by the Productivity Commission. It could be worthwhile making contact with Daryl Quinlivan from the Commission if you need something drafted with the imprimatur of the Australian Government.

Just a few more comments/observations on details of the report using my points 1-7 above. On 1 & 2., sustainability is a key issue. I like the provision for community input provided for in the report  but each country of interest really needs to have a national organisation responsible for water regulation with the appropriate hydrological, NRM and economic expertise to establish suitable water extraction quotas. Sometimes, particularly where water and catchments cross national boundaries, an international body will be appropriate as in the case of the Mekong and a bit like administration of the Murray-Darling Basin (although MDB is national). Rights addressed in  3. also require assessment – water needed for household use (eg drinking and sanitation), agricultural use and manufacturing and non-consumptive uses, including the environment. I note that rights in the way that I see them are different to the use of the term ‘right to water’ used in the report which seems to be more emotionally based without quantification and not suitable for operationalising.  The rights I describe can have varying securities attached as is done in Australia for urban versus agricultural water use. One point on future use of water that I didn’t understand  in the report is Figure 5-why is it that industrial uses of water will become so much more important in the decades ahead? On 4, pricing is a sensitive issue but the report needs to address options for overcoming the sensitivities. For example,  water purchased by the poor can be eligible for a specific and transparent government subsidy such that the price received by the relevant authority is unchanged but the payment comes from the government as well as the consumer.

The report doesn’t give sufficient emphasis to the advantages of a water trade regime (5. above), particularly the advantage markets provide with respect to moving water to its highest value use, a task the report seems to suggest (I am not sure on this) is best done administratively. The latter will never succeed and will require an army to ‘pick all the winners’.  On trade more broadly, I was left with the impression that the report is assigning a low priority to addressing food shortages by trade liberalisation as it puts great emphasis on the rights to water and food without much weight given to comparative advantage and specialisation of nations. These issues need to be addressed with a far more balanced  treatment.

Whatever framework nations finally adopt, it is vulnerable without some capacity to monitor and enforce key provisions, particularly property rights but also validation of water consumption, trade and compliance more broadly. The institutional support must also embrace related policy issues such as competition policy (point 7 above). There is considerable danger in just setting a framework and ‘letting the market rip’ if there is potential for monopolisation of assets and concentration of trade. These are issues the international community should be thinking about to help strengthen international governance.

Finally, storage (along with hydropower) is raised in the report but there isn’t a convincing discussion of how infrastructure investment needs might be met in the decades ahead, as demand for water increases, climate change threatens supply and there are 2 billion more people on the planet (by 2050). What are some of the options that might help us secure water supplies for food production?

All these issues suggest an ongoing program of work that international partners could undertake over an extended period. Bit by bit, the jigsaw could be put together.

I hope these brief comments are of some assistance Joanna. I could provide some further comments later in the process should that option be of interest.

Regards

Bernard Wonder

We have implement a project on water storage to improve the growing of vegetables.

Please kindly see in the attached file. 

We welcome the October publication of the draft Water and food security report by The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition and take particular note of the sections in the draft relevant to biofuels, which we summarize below:

While some kinds of renewable energy, such as wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power, do not consume much water, other renewable energy processes such as concentrated solar power and biofuels consume significant quantities of water. . . . Biofuels can add pressure to ‘water supply and water quality problems’ (HLPE 2013) especially if irrigated (Lundqvist, de Fraiture and Molden 2008). Although regional variation is large, de Fraiture et al (2008) estimate that on average it takes around 2 500 litres of crop evapotranspiration and 820 litres of water withdrawals to provide one litre of biofuel. It is at the country or local level that the trade offs between water for food and water for biofuels are felt. For example, in India water for biofuels can compete directly with water for food such as cereals and vegetables (ibid). Also as concluded by the HLPE, biofuel production usually does not benefit small-holder farmers in water scarce contexts (HLPE, 2011).

We note that only one source is used for the draft's conclusions about the biofuels and water nexus, a desk research paper submitted in 2007 about China and India (de Fraiture, C., Giordano, M. And Liao, Y. 2008. Biofuels and implications for agricultural water use: blue impacts of green energy, Water Policy 10 Supplement 1: 67-81), which we will call the "Paper".  We have no criticism of the Paper save one- which is that it seems unaware that most biofuels processes result in just as much animal feed as biofuel.  Yet, in the draft Water and food security the Paper is (i) misquoted, (ii) unsuited as a source for global conclusions, and (iii) not actually about biofuels as all.  We urge you to make changes to the final report to avoid misinterpretation and explain our reasoning below.

For almost a decade the Paper has been used by anti-biofuel campaigners to suggest that biofuels production facilities consume and pollute huge amounts of water, which, of course, the Paper does not say at all.  In fact, where the Paper says "biofuels" it actually only means "biofuel feedstock".  A modern maize ethanol plant pollutes no water and uses (often recycling this water) only 3 liters of water to produce one liter of ethanol.

Water and food security currently states both that "biofuels consume considerable amounts of water" and "on average it takes around 2 500 litres of crop evapotranspiration and 820 litres of water withdrawals to provide one litre of biofuel".  Yet, the Paper takes pains to stress that US maize ethanol and EU rapeseed biodiesel are rain fed and have almost no water scarcity impacts, both directly and in context (e.g. "From a water perspective, it makes a large difference whether biofuel is derived from fully irrigated sugarcane grown in semi-arid areas or rain-fed maize grown in water-abundant regions.").  To a lesser degree, the Paper makes the same point about Brazilian sugarcane.  And, the Paper unfortunately ignores the undeniable fact that both maize ethanol and rapeseed biodiesel processes (as opposed to sugarcane ethanol) result in just as much high protein animal feed as biofuel, belying the suggestion that water used by the underlying crops should be booked only as an energy use.

We must take great exception to the suggestion that biofuel production "usually does not benefit small holder farmers", although we appreciate the context of the phrase that follows.  Our concern is because most of the biofuel feedstock processed into biofuels in the Northern Hemisphere (whether ethanol or biodiesel) is produced by family farmers.

The "average" in 2006 is not the average in 2014.  Almost no biofuel produced in the world's three largest biofuel producing areas (Brazil, Europe and the United States) is accurately described by the above statements in the current draft.  Since these biofuels constitute the vast majority of 2014 biofuels, there is no basis to include either phrase above in the final report.

The Paper is about theoretical impacts in China and India, which is clearly what Table 1 of the Paper states.  Accordingly, we respectfully request that the relevant passages of the draft be revised as follows:

While some kinds of renewable energy, such as wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power, do not consume much water, other renewable energy processes may [such as concentrated solar power and biofuels[ consume significant quantities of water. . . . Biofuel feedstocks can add pressure to ‘water supply and water quality problems’ (HLPE 2013) especially if irrigated (Lundqvist, de Fraiture and Molden 2008). [Although regional variation is large, de Fraiture et al (2008) estimate that on average it takes around 2 500 litres of crop evapotranspiration and 820 litres of water withdrawals to provide one litre of biofuel.] It is at the country or local level that the trade offs between water for food and water for biofuels are felt, particularly in water-scare regions. For example, in India water for biofuels can compete directly with water for food such as cereals and vegetables (de Fraiture et al (2008)ibid). Also as concluded by the HLPE, biofuel production usually does not benefit small-holder farmers in water scarce contexts in the Southern Hemisphere (HLPE, 2011).

Respectfully yours,

Eric W. Sievers

CEO

Ethanol Europe Renewables Limited