Dear All,
Today is International World Water Day. International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
The theme for this year’s World Water Day is Water and Food Security.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations) coordinates all the activities related to this particular day at International level.
An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.
Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. There are 7 billion people to feed on the planet today and another 2 billion are expected to join by 2050. Statistics say that each of us drinks from 2 to 4 litres of water every day, however most of the water we ‘drink’ is embedded in the food we eat: producing 1 kilo of beef for example consumes 15,000 litres of water while 1 kilo of wheat ’drinks up’ 1,500 litres.
When a billion people in the world already live in chronic hunger and water resources are under pressure we cannot pretend the problem is ‘elsewhere’. Coping with population growth and ensuring access to nutritious food to everyone call for a series of actions we can all help with - Follow a healthier, sustainable diet;
- Consume less water-intensive products;
- Reduce the scandalous food wastage: 30% of the food produced worldwide is never eaten and the water used to produce it is definitively lost!
- Produce more food, of better quality, with less water.
Please find attached the following in order - Brochure highlighting the theme of this year’s International World Water Day
- How much water is needed to produce our food?
- How much water is needed to produce your meal?
- (Source: www.fao.org/NR/water)
The central idea behind all this is to create awareness, sensitize people and adopt practices that could help us to utilize this precious resource optimally and more efficiently. At all steps of the supply chain, from producers to consumers, actions can be taken to save water and ensure food for all. Kindly forward this to all your friends, family, colleagues and everyone else you know. Warm Regards, Shabdendu | |
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WWD2012_BROCHURE_EN.pdf
Water for Food.pdf
Water for Meal.pdf
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