Thank you very much for the opportunity to submit our comments on the HLPE. We congratulate the HLPE for hammering out a very timely and long overdue paper linking water, food security and nutrition. Below are my organization's comments on the document.
1. The scope of the topic of water and food security is very broad. Do you think that the V0 draft has adequately charted the diversity of the linkages between water and food security and nutrition? Is there important evidence or aspects that the present draft has failed to cover?
We welcome the report as it’s indeed very comprehensive and a successful attempt to link the water with food security, nutrition and other important related issues such as energy. Other issues that we want to highlight, which in some ways have been addressed by the paper:
· Security of access and tenure to land, forests, watersheds and territories for small-hold agricultural communities, agricultural and forest workers, and indigenous communities are crucial to protecting watersheds, aquifers and the overall quality and supply of raw water. Such communities are integral to maintaining the multifunctionality of agriculture in which water is a central element.
· Too much water is captured by manufacturing industry, extractive industry, industrial agriculture and luxury/high end recreation and housing complexes—thus reducing the amount of water available for food and agricultural production. Such sectors and projects are increasingly located in sensitive watershed and aquifer areas, and are responsible for creating actual water scarcity as well socio-economic water scarcity. In addition to capturing majority of the water in the area, they also pollute and deplete water sources, and severely restrict the ability of local communities to access water for food and agricultural production, daily use and other livelihood activities.
· Water connects everyone from the farmer upstream to a city dweller downstream. It ignores all political boundaries and separations. Its pollution or overextraction in one region will affect both people and animals in another region. And it is likely to become the visual symbol of ever increasing climate change, as countries face unprecedented droughts in some regions and devastating floods elsewhere. The good news is that despite the doom-laden warnings of Water Wars, our history has shown that water is more often the cause of cooperation rather than conflict.
2. Has the report adequately covered the diversity of approaches and methodological issues, in particular concerning metrics and data for water and food security? Which metrics do you find particularly useful and which not?
· It is important to highlight that the discourse regarding ‘scarcity’, ‘conflict’ and ‘security’ put forward in the paper will not allow already dominant state and corporate actors to determine the parameters they are willing to accept in confronting the ‘climate and water crisis’. In other words, thee discourse on water scarcity should not make things worse for those most vulnerable to the negative aspects of climate change and changed/ing hydrological cycles: water and land capture for the few; marginalization for the many.
3. Food security involves trade of agricultural produce, and a virtual trade of water. Agricultural trade interact with water and food security in various ways, and differently for food importing countries, food exporting countries, water scarce versus water rich countries. Do you think the V0 draft has appropriately covered the matter?
· Indeed the paper showed through the concept of virtual water, lots of the water we use comes from somewhere else in imported food. But virtual trade of water also highlights the narrative of resource capture by the few and ecological marginalization of the many (socially constructed scarcity vs. physical and economic scarcity). For example, many of the feeds imported by the Netherlands come from supposedly water resource-rich countries such as Indonesia. But this comes at a very high price and oftentimes at the expense of communities’ access to water, which instead of being used domestically is used for export agriculture. The proposal for promoting virtual trade of water must be taken with a grain of salt as this can promote water scarcity and insecurity for many and in fact a form of indirect water grabbing as virtual water is an embedded/hidden/embodied water trade to produce commodities, minerals and energy for export.
· Here for example, the Council of Canadians highlighted that Canada is the second net virtual water exporter in the world—amounting to just under 60 billion cubic meter, enough to fill the Rogers Center in Toronto 37,500 times. The virtual water trade concept, according to their report, is "useful in terms of looking at how impoverished and water poor countries are depleting their water supplies in order to maintain export markets, while other more wealthy countries import most of their water footprint in order to protect their own limited water resources". In essence, virtual water trade (though has its own conceptual limits and use for policy making) through investment and free trade agreements, effectively connects local water availability with global flows of trade and investment.
· A clear example which is connected to the land grabbing phenomenon is the production of biofuels. Water is needed especially during feedstock cultivation—estimates are in the range 500-4000 liters of water for every 1 liter of ethanol. Water consumption and agrochemical use during biofuel production could adversely impact both availability and quality of water (e.g. with runoff and soil erosion the high fertilizer application rates especially for corn crops in Midwestern US provide the greatest flux of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Mississippi river contributing to the hypoxic situation in the Gulf of Mexico ). For biofuel processing, you also need 2-10 liters of water per liter of ethanol , which can have localized impacts on water quality and quantity. The assumption here is that as you increase land requirement for biofuels, there is also a corresponding increase in water use and demand .Scientists estimate that we need 50 gallons of water per mile driven using biofuels, and while large quantities of water are also needed to produce energy from traditional sources, the water requirements to produce an equivalent amount of energy from biofuels are comparatively large and more consumptive. The use of “water footprint” can however be a double edged sword—there are studies which show that if you mitigate the water footprint of biofuels, it will be alright to have them, without taking into consideration the land use and changes in property and social relations within which such production happen.
· The problem with focusing too much on scarcity is that it drives the neoliberal agenda, meaning, pricing water correctly and everything will be alright. This is problematic especially when you start to price raw water and the paper already showed the pitfalls of water rights trading in Australia and how it has allowed for the marginalization of small farmers.
· There are many positive points in terms of becoming more resource efficient vs. achieving food security and nutrition at different scales and across different sectors. But policy proposals for such must also challenge the dominant approach to water security, especially at the global governance level, which is security for the few and insecurity for the many.
4. In this report, we considered the potential for an expansion of the right to water to also encompass productive uses. What kind of practical and policy challenges would this bring?
· In the context of the multiple crises, especially of a climate changed/changing world, expanding and linking the right to water and sanitation to other rights—the right to adequate food, food sovereignty, livelihood, right to land, and ultimately, to life itself are crucial. It is very important that at this day and age, the FAO and the UN embrace a much more comprehensive approach to the right to water as we cannot separate one from the other. This is why it’s important that the paper highlighted that when we talk about implementing the right to water, we need to understand the other threats to these right such as land and water grabbing, the destruction of our forests, the building of hydropower, mining, and extractive activities, and mega infrastructure, among others that are affecting the quality and availability of water, especially for food production
5. Which systemic actions/solutions/approaches would be the most effective to enhance water governance, management and use for food security?
· Very important to revolutionise water management and governance. There are a number of approaches and models on this. One is democratization experiments and innovative models of public service delivery, which also covers rural water management. For example in Tamil Nadu, India, under the engineers of the Change Management Initiative of the Tamil Nadu Water Board, a public utility, water was supplied to 60 million people of Tamil Nadu and irrigation water was delivered to the farms of more than one million families. This was accompanied by attitudinal changes, shifts in perspective and transformation in the institutional culture of water engineers using a process-oriented participatory training methodology based on the traditional practice of Koodam, a Tamil word that means gathering, social space, and consensus-building, implying harmony, diversity, equality and justice. The transformation in the institutional culture of water engineers, and the changes in perspectives and relations between local communities and the Tamil Nadu water utility have facilitated the implementation of the joint management of water resources between them. Women in the communities took a pro-active role in taking care of their water sources, ensuring safe and quality drinking water for all members of the community as well as ensuring water for food production. The communities instituted their own oversight and monitoring systems to check the quality of their water sources. These have been strong positive tools for improving public water service delivery, caring for water sources and instituting community empowerment.
· Notions of what is ‘public and publicness’ have also been expanded and reclaimed by citizens and people in the global South. In Colombia, social participation has taken on new forms. A national public-community partnership led to the strengthening of communal aqueducts in the country, which is the primary pipeline that delivers water to households as well as to farms. Led by the water movement in Colombia, communities were systematically organized and provided with the necessary technical, legal and economic support to ensure that good quality water is delivered to both the rural and urban areas. Women also played a vital role as leaders in the strengthening and structuring of the aqueducts.
· There are also upstream-downstream partnerships, especially around managing competing claims over the same resource. In the Philippines, there have been initiatives by public utilities that have allowed communities to manage and maintain the water sources for the cities. The public utilities directly invest in agro-ecological farming practices and in community livelihoods, with the idea that a “good environment will produce good water.” Public utilities have also taxed or levied industrial and commercial water users and ring-fenced it for watershed protection. In Thailand, the competing demands for water from households, agriculture, tourism and industry has led the different interest groups in the Ping River, one of the main tributaries of the Chao Phraya River, to negotiate and balance such competing demands. The Ping River Basin Committee had brought together various water users such as local non-government organizations (NGOs), residents of communities located upstream and downstream of the river, farmers and indigenous people relying on the river for livelihood and sustenance. The result was mutually agreed on ecologically sustainable and equitable system of water allocation for all.
· Similarly, diverse actors have taken collective actions to protect watersheds and sources of water against the threats of extractive industries like mining. When companies applied to mine inside the Sibalom watershed located in Central Philippines, local community-based water users, village and municipal governments, public water utilities and NGOs banded together to oppose the approval of the applications. They have also invited researchers to conduct studies to estimate the benefits of watershed protection as a means to oppose mining applications within the watershed area. In so doing, the various concerned groups, especially the riparian communities within the Sibalom watershed, were able to gain deeper insights into the laws of nature, motivating them to respect and understand the interconnectedness of ecosystems, and thereby effectively oppose the mining projects.
· What perhaps the HLPE fails to mention or at least to articulate is the need for a new water vision that looks at the interrelatedness of water, food security and nutrition. The models and examples I mentioned above promote a new vision for water management, one that re-establishes water as commons and prioritises social and ecological justice and democratization within water governance. Water justice is key to ensuring that all communities, especially the poor and marginalised have equal and equitable access to safe, affordable and sustainable water use for various purposes such as drinking, food production, fishing, recreational and cultural uses—even at a time of additional stress.
6. On the recommendations: policies and actions
· The nature of agricultural production being promoted by governments and multilateral development industry negatively affects the quality and availability of water; this includes commercialised and industrial farming, aquaculture, agribusiness operations, etc. In order to restore and maintain the integrity of ground and surface water, and ensure sufficient availability, we have to reorient agricultural production systems away from chemically intensive and extensive agriculture and towards sustainable agriculture. We support the recommendation of the paper to promote agroecology as a viable and practical solution/policy.
· Water is an essential/crucial public good and public service, and should not be privatised and commodified in any form. Instead of public-private partnerships, we urge governments and FAO to accept and promote public-public partnerships through which, governments work with rural and urban communities and societal actors in the preservation, delivery, management, financing and governance of water.
· Water is a key ingredient in the multifunctional nature of agriculture; in fact, water itself can be considered multifunctional: not only does it serve multiple needs and purposes but also, it is used, shared, managed and protected through a variety of local systems in smallhold farming and indigenous communities. Government and multilateral agencies should promote agricultural systems that facilitate and support the multifunctionality of water.
· Rural communities-especially indigenous communities, smallhold and subsistence producers and workers—should have legally guaranteed and secure access and tenure to lands, forests, watersheds and territories.
Ø This will encourage local commitments and 'investments' to use, conserve and share water.
Ø It will encourage communities sharing the same eco-systems to work out how to share water, resolve water disputes, etc.
· One of the biggest threats to water quality and availability is large scale, industrial agriculture, especially plantations, monocultures and mono-cropping, etc. Large agribusinesses see water as a factor of production and do not recognise its full ecological, social, economic and cultural value. They tend to externalise the costs of pollution, waste, aquifer depletion and contamination, etc.
Ø Industrial agriculture should be discouraged.
Ø Industrial agricultural companies must be pay for the ecological, economic and social costs (“externalities”) of pollution, contamination, aquifer depletion, etc.
· Industries, mining, tourism and recreational resorts/complexes, luxury housing, etc. located in or adjacent to watershed, wetlands and other water catchment areas divert water away from food production, food harvesting, daily use, livelihood activities, aquifer replenishment and crucial environmental flows. These trends are a major cause of water scarcity. As long as governments and multilateral agencies continue to promote high-growth oriented development that does not 'internalise' the social, economic and environmental costs of natural resource use, water scarcity will increase and result in negative impacts on local livelihoods as well as give rise to water related conflicts. In order to redress problems of water scarcity and prevent future scarcities, governments have to start moving towards an ecologically sustainable model of development.
· Water scarcity in relation to climate change cannot be addressed without first addressing the high-carbon, high-energy systems/models of agricultural production, distribution and consumption that are currently dominant. Governments and multilateral agencies must promote and actively support low carbon lifestyles, sustainable agriculture, localisation of production and consumption, and energy saving/conserving technologies.
Mary Ann Manahan