It is agreed that food supply needs to be increased in the coming years, if possible with cost savings. It is necessary to serve the more than 800 million people with poor nutrition and population growth.
It is also true that the potential for expansion of agriculture is limited. Restricted by the lack of arable land in some regions of the world, or by environmental restrictions, such as in Brazil. Speaking in Brazil, it is from here that we expect to meet at least 20% of the increase in demand. Finally, it is estimated that 75% of growth in food production will need to come from land already in use.
But, how to do that? In addition to the development of more efficient plant varieties, good use of soil and crop management techniques, pests and diseases, etc., irrigation expansion is essential. But how so? There is news that the agricultural sector has been the great villain, drawing water from the cities! Are we even going to make this worse? News in the newspaper reports that agribusiness consumes 83% of already scarce fresh water, according to the National Water Agency (ANA).
Good, but what is water consumed? Nowadays, the SPARK water is separated from the USED water. They are very different things. For example, “experts” report that 5,000 liters of water are used to produce 1 kg of corn, or 1,800 liters for each kg of soybeans. A 1.2-kg picanilla, from our barbecue, would spend 12 thousand of water to be produced. There’s water!
All plants, including the forests and garden grass, need water to survive. They perspire, and breathe. To breathe they need holes for the entrance of air, called stomata. It occurs that, for the stomata to open, water is needed, which is evaporated – the transpiration of the plants. This is USED water. Because? Because it comes with the rain, or comes through the irrigation and seeps into the soil. The part that is not used by the plant returns to the springs, filtered by the soil. The part absorbed by the plants is for the most part transpired. Where? To the atmosphere, turn to cloud, turn rain, again. It was not worn, it was used.
The water that we use in the cities, the same one that comes from the rivers or the wells, serves for the bath, in the kitchen, in the industries, ends up being contaminated, or contaminated, with detergents, with fecal coliforms, etc. Then it returns to the rivers, treated or not. It does not return to the mines, it is not reused. It’s worn.
So, my friends, to put in a simplistic way, the agribusiness USA water, the city GASTA water. It is ignorance or bad faith to call the use of water by waste water plants.
Good, and how is that business of the National Water Agency? Are the numbers manufactured? No. It occurs when the farmer irrigates and uses the water, the quantity is measured in the same way as the water that is spent in the cities. The Agency does not take into account that that water comes back, cleaned most of the time, for nature. The measure made by ANA is for collection purposes only, this should not be used for other purposes as for the construction of dissemination of myths.
* Ciro Antonio Rosolem is Vice-President of Studies of the Agricultural Scientific Council (CCAS) and Professor of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the Paulista State University “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” (FCA / Unesp Botucatu)