How Much Water Do We Each Consume in Our Food?
By Paul H. Betancourt
Copyright March 2015
The Cold Hard Numbers
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
reports that it takes nearly 800 gallons to produce food for one person. This
is a global number. This applies to the developing world as well as the
developed world. It does not matter if your food is produced through irrigation
or dry land farming. 800 gallons per day, per person. Let’s run that number
out-
800 gallons per person per day x 365 days= 292,000 gallons per person per year.
It takes almost 9/10ths of an acre foot of water per year to
produce your food.
Let’s apply that number to California since that is our
immediate concern-
292,000 gallons per person per year x 38 million
Californians= 11,096,0000,000,000 You
are reading that right, over 11 Trillion gallons of water to just produce the
food to feed California. [I always encourage people to check my math. The link
for the FAO report is below.]That turns out to be just over 34 Million acre
feet.
34 million acre feet turns out to be about to be the amount
of water California’s farmers use to produce our food. Interesting.
There are
some people throwing a fit about how much water it takes to grow an almond
because we export almonds. Their accusation is we are exporting natural
resources to make some people rich. Actually, exporting almonds increases
prosperity for all Californians. That is how trade works. [In the interest of
full disclosure I have proudly grown almonds for years.]
But, for a
moment let’s just take a look at the concern about farm water use. No matter
how you slice it takes over 34 million acre feet of water to grow food to feed
California. This number does not include the cotton and wool we wear in our
clothes. Even if we imported all of our food it would still take 34 million
acre feet of water to grow our food. And, what would that do to our carbon foot
print?
Speaking of
carbon foot print- what is the big concern in environmental circles these days?
Climate change. What is the one thing they want us to do to lower our carbon
footprint with regards to our food? Buy food grown closer to home. California’s
farmers can grow food for 38 million Californians, but we need a stable water
supply to do it.
Whether
Vegan or Junk food junkie each of us averages 800 gallons of water a day to
produce our food. 292,000 gallons of water per person per year.
So what do we do?
We need to
be increasing our water supply. We are not going to conserve our way out of
this. There are just not enough low flow toilets.
We need
more water storage, especially if you are concerned about climate change. One
of the problems with the water bond we passed last year is only 30% of the
funds go to increase our water supply-if that ever gets built.
The cold, hard number is it takes 34 million acre feet just
to produce the food we eat in California and we need to add 292,000 gallons of
supply for each new person that comes to California, just to feed them.
note- it is dot.org. Dot.com will get you the toy company
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