WWF used to be the World Wildlife Fund, but these days it has a rather different agenda at the forefront of climate alarmism. In their latest 'report,' WWF have used the concepts of a 'Water Footprint' and 'Virtual Water.' The UK Telegraph reports that, "The average person in the UK uses over 1000 gallons of water a day, making the country one of the biggest water importers in the world." If you haven't drowned, and have nothing better to do, read more here.
No Beowulff, I am not against all forms of water use tracking, farmers monitor their soil moisture and utilisation on a continuous basis. If they don't they go out backwards, fast. It is only at the retail product level that the so-called tracking becomes an absurdity.
The problem is that "farmer Bob" will have a completely different water footprint every time he plants a paddock. Sometimes he will not even produce a crop worth harvesting but he will have used up all his moisture profile on the early stages of a crop only to see it come to nothing without either follow up rain or an irrigation allocation.
And in that sort of situation, the used water cannot be allocated to any end product. But a retail level tracking system would need to account for it and the only way it could do so would be to apply a market place penalty to any farmer who's crop has failed or even under performed. It is these crops that will exhibit the highest water footprint so the WWF is essentially promoting a system that will hammer the worlds most disadvantaged farmers at the very time they can least cope with it.
You must also retain the simple fact that the concept of virtual water can only ever be an average figure. But an average with such a significant standard deviation, as is exhibited by crop yields, is of zero value.
Ian:
"The difference between a 7 tonne/ha crop and a 1 tonne/ha crop is not 7 times more water"
Doesn't this just mean that different crops get different water usage footprints? I can even imagine that you should assign different footprints to "grain from Kansas" and "grain from Zimbabwe" due to differences in environment, climate and technology. Maybe you even want to give "grain from farmer Alice" a different score than "grain from farmer Bob", even though they have adjacent farms. Nothing in the concept of virtual water prevents you from zooming in to the level of detail that you want.
"..but I have no intention of offering any advice on solutions because the entire concept is rooted in both ignorance and malice"
So you're confirming that your problem is not just with "Virtual Water", but with *all* forms of water usage tracking? Are you saying that we therefore should give up on tracking water usage?
No Beowulff, You still don't get it. The difference between a 7 tonne/ha crop and a 1 tonne/ha crop is not 7 times more water. It can be as little as 2 times the water input. The interaction of so many variables makes the whole concept of a water footprint an absurdity.
And your attempt to isolate this issue from the real world will not wash with readers here. If you are talking about the water footprint of primary produce, and seeking to apply it to any sort of public policy debate, then it will certainly have relevance to on-farm circumstances.
And lets not forget that the entire thrust of the WWF promo was focussed on UK consumers reducing their implied consumption of foreign water. It betrays a clear intention to induce people to make their purchase decisions based on this gonzo methodology.
Thank you for conceding that the major water input, rainwater, unlike irrigation water, is not discretionary. Yes, that too is a fundamental flaw in the WWF methodology but I have no intention of offering any advice on solutions because the entire concept is rooted in both ignorance and malice.
Indeed, I have yet to see any form of "footprint" based analysis that wasn't riven with ignorance, misrepresentation and unambiguously malicious intent. It is the kind of voodoo crap that might serve as a barely plausible "stocking stuffer" in a unit of "planet nutter 101" but here in the real world it is just another form of green onanism.
Seems it's the word "virtual" that has some in a flap.
Maybe Michael better wander into the kitchen and prepare a weeks worth of virtual meals and report back on the 30th August.
Never know, might work a treat in places like.....hmmm... Darfur.
Ian Mott: "The fact that the UN is into so-called water footprints merely confirms that it is pure bull$hit."
I'm sorry, but judging a concept by who supports it is not helping your credibility.
Your first objection, that natural water uses such as forests and such need to be accounted for as well, seems fair enough, but is not an argument against the concept about virtual water itself, but about how it's applied. There's no doubt you could apply it to forests too, and then you could use that to weigh it against the utility value of the forests as well.
Your second objection, that it doesn't account for secondary effects of rain and irrigation, such as a more moist micro-climate leading to lower irrigation needs, seems unlikely to me. Wouldn't this show in lower water uses for irrigation, and thus automatically be included into the accounting?
The same for any variation in crop yields, etc, wouldn't that simply lead to variation in the virtual water accounts? Saying that the variation would lead to meaningless results is nonsense, farmers deal with this variation every year, don't they? Clearly they have ways to estimate how much resources like fertilizer they will need and how much they can afford for a certain expected yield. Why would water be different as a resource?
"Yet, the WWF gonzo accounting system appears to imply that both irrigation water and rain water are discretionary and of equal value."
Yes, this is a serious problem. How would you propose to solve it? I'd say it might be possible to improve this by extending the accounting to differentiate by water source. What do you think?
And finally, you seem to assume that people argue that a high virtual water content for a product means it should immediately be boycotted, and you think that's something only a "knuckle dragging green neanderthal pervert" would say (which didn't sound ranty *at all* /sarcasm). Of course it is ridiculous. That's why nobody has been saying that. Ever heard of a straw-man argument?
First of all, it's obvious that virtual water is only a measure of water *requirements*, so virtual water alone can never be used for decision making. For starters, you'll clearly need to look at water *availability* as well. Second of all, water usage is only one aspect in the costs of a product, but there are many others. Third, you will need to look at the utility of a product. Only when taking all these factors into account can you make a decision. Making decisions on virtual water alone is ridiculous, and that's why nobody will advocate it.
Virtual water isn't about 'the farm', it's about trade and larger scale use. Individual farms might want to account for their water in great detail, but it's impossible to account for every molecule and no one is suggesting that virtual water or water footprints do any such thing. If you'd read the literature and the research you'd be aware that this is openly acknowledged.
Several countries are already using virtual water concepts to help manage their water resources at a national level.
You're tilting at windmills.
You still don't get it do you, Michael. Water use cannot be isolated to mutually exclusive outcomes. Trees reduce wind speed and thereby reduce water use by crops but they can also reduce stream flow, thereby reducing stored water in farm dams. The WWF methodology may only account for specific use but as my earlier post made clear, this is pure bull$hit. The only sensible and logical approach is "whole of farm" use. And even then it would still produce such a broad range of variation that the averages become completely meaningless.
If the water use variance was significantly less, as in, say, the 10% range, then there might be a case for using this approach. But that is not the case and the only conclusion is one of "garbage in, garbage out.
And again, you are wrong as to my exposure to the methodology. I have been riding shot gun on this crap for years. whereas, you have made it clear that you haven't given it much thought at all.