The real cost of salad: You pay 99p. Africa pays 50 litres of fresh water

[Robbien]

To you it is a bag of salad, dropped into the supermarket trolley with the weekly groceries. But to farmers in Kenya starved of the water extracted by large scale agriculture to grow it, it may spell destitution. The world is running out of water and British supermarket shoppers are contributing to global drought, according to environmental pressure groups.

Customers who scour the aisles of Tesco, Sainsbury and Waitrose for Spanish tomatoes, Egyptian potatoes and Kenyan roses, are intensifying the worldwide shortage of our most precious resource.

In Kenya, the food items grown for export include lettuce, rocket, baby leaf salad, mangetout, peas and broccoli. Even producing a small 50g salad bag wastes almost 50 litres of water in the countries where the commodity is at its most precious. A mixed salad containing tomatoes, celery and cucumber, as well as lettuce, would require more than 300 litres. Washing, processing and packaging adds to that total.

The international trade in out-of-season vegetables and flowers brings employment for some and wealth for a few.

But for those who find the water for their land has been extracted by larger enterprises upstream, it means increasing hardship and even permanent environmental damage.

Bruce Lankford, a senior lecturer in natural resources at the University of East Anglia, said yesterday: "We are exporting drought. High-value agriculture is good for the economies ofthese countries but its impact on poverty is inequitable. In the dry season farmers downstream find the river beds have dried out."

much more (also effect of bottled water):
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article360836.ece

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Um, my lettuce comes from Salinas, not Kenya.

Anyway, I didn't think they ate a whole lot of fresh vegetables in England, as it was. Now they're supposed to eat less?

[oblivious]

3. No one is suggesting they eat fewer veggies,just more water efficient ones

[barb162]

2. oh, I never thought of it...didn't even know they were producing

these crops there, let alone they were so short on water in Kenya due to the preparation of these crops. Kenya needs to take a Action...tyhat these companies recycle the water and return it to the people downstream

[oblivious]

4. I really appreciate this article, but did you see the Trump one below?

Keep your hair on! Trump blows into town with attack on wind farms

...Scotland's potential as a world leader in wind power was not lost on Donald Trump's legendary comb-over as it flapped violently in what passes for a light breeze in Aberdeen yesterday.

But for the tycoon himself, the prospect of placing wind turbines next to his planned £300m golf complex was too much to bear.

"When I stand on the 18th hole of Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, I want to see the ocean. I do not want to see windmills," he said bluntly.

Mr Trump said he had been in discussions with energy companies who planned an offshore wind farm close to Menie Estate, where his 800-acre course is planned. "The world thinks of Scotland as some of the most beautiful land anywhere," he said. "I do not think Scotland, for the sake of some electricity, wants to ruin the beauty or majesty of your country.
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article360837.ece

[twenty4blackbirds]

5. rustic Scotland...

golf by candlelight, that's the way to go :silly:

[NMMNG]

6. Dear Mr. Trump, Go eff yourself

preferably with your golf clubs.