To foster their competitive advantage, food firms pay an increasing attention to strategies that tend to distinguish their products from the ones supplied by their competitors, dedicating to this task most of their resources, knowledge and creativity. In such a framework, also the resource water, often seen as an homogenous product, is more and more utilized in the advertisement as an element that increases the quality of the final good. This paper aims at building a model that can explain the observed behaviour in the different food industries and that can give some insights about the future perspectives of the utilization of the water as a differentiation factor. To reach this goal, first we present a survey of the commercials of specific food industries (beverages, pasta, bread, fresh produce), in which the contribute of water to the product is shown. On the basis of empirical evidence, we argue that the propensity to use water as an element of differentiation is greater when greater are the degrees of technological knowledge, the consumers' perceptions, and the importance of the differentiation strategy in that specific industry. Since we expect that these three factors will increase over time, we also conclude that it is rational to experiment a generalized increase of the utilization of water in the commercials of food products. We also recommend to extend the analysis testing the results using a quantitative approach | Per effetto dell'aumento della competizione sui mercati nazionali e internazionali, l'industria alimentare è spinta a dedicare una crescente attenzione alle strategie di differenziazione. A tal fine, essa impiega gran parte delle risorse, delle conoscenze e della creatività a disposizione. In un tale contesto, anche l'acqua, una risorsa spesso interpretata come bene altamente omogeneo, risulta sempre più utilizzata nelle campagne promozionali dei prodotti alimentari per spiegare la maggiore qualità degli stessi. Il presente contributo ha l'intento di costruire un modello esplicativo di questi comportamenti tale da offrire, al contempo, indicazioni prospettiche circa il ruolo dell'acqua come elemento di differenziazione. Analizzando le pubblicità di alcuni specifici prodotti (bevande, pasta, pane, ortofrutta fresca), si argomenta che la propensione all'utilizzo dell'acqua come fattore di differenziazione in un determinato comparto alimentare è direttamente proporzionale al livello delle conoscenze tecnologiche, alla percezione del consumatore e alla rilevanza della strategia di differenziazione in quello stesso comparto. Considerando che, nel tempo, ciascuna delle tre determinanti è destinata a sperimentare un trend positivo, è lecito attendersi anche un crescente riferimento al contributo della risorsa acqua all'interno dei messaggi pubblicitari. L'impostazione prevalentemente teorica del presente contributo induce a considerare particolarmente interessante l'ipotesi di testare i risultati mediante un approccio prettamente quantitativo

Ensuring food security is accompanied by risks which can significantly weaken it. Water resources are distributed on the land area extremely unevenly; differ in the wide range of variability on security per capita, high temporary variability. It was revealed that in 2014 more than 2.5 billion people in 46 countries lived in conditions of a water stress and deficiency. Russia is one of the few countries with rather high level of specific water security, but has extremely uneven distribution of water resources to districts which don't correspond to population distribution. Low water availability in the Crimean federal district, Moscow and the Moscow region, the Belgorod and Kursk regions, Stavropol region is noted. In shallow years in these regions there can be very serious problems with water supply. The international experience convincingly proves that melioration promotes stabilization of agricultural production. In Russia the reclaimed lands occupy less than 5% of grounds and 8% of an arable land, but even they are used not always effectively. Water resources in the majority of regions of Russia don't limit development of agriculture. The approaching global water crisis creates very favourable conditions for the countries with water security as the increase in demand and prices of water capacious production is inevitable. Russia has competitive advantages in production of water capacious agricultural production and can become one of the leaders in the corresponding world markets. The most perspective export goods are grain and meat. The increase in the export potential of grain up to 150 mln t, the increase in production of the cattle and poultry (in live weight) – up to 15 mln t, are possible by 2020. | Обеспечение продовольственной безопасности сопряжено с рисками, которые могут существенно ее ослабить. Водные ресурсы распределены по территории суши крайне неравномерно, отличаются широким диапазоном изменчивости по обеспеченности в расчете на душу населения, высокой временной изменчивостью. Выявлено, что в 2014г. более 2,5 млрд. человек в 46 странах жили в условиях водного стресса и дефицита. Россия – одна из немногих стран с достаточно высоким уровнем удельной водообеспеченности, но имеет крайне неравномерное распределение водных ресурсов по округам, которое не соответствует распределению населения по численности. Отмечена низкая водообеспеченность в Крымском федеральном округе, г. Москва и Московской области, Белгородской и Курской областях, Ставропольском крае. В маловодные годы в данных регионах могут возникать весьма серьезные проблемы с водообеспечением. Мировой опыт убедительно доказывает, что мелиорация способствует стабилизации с.-х. производства. В России мелиорируемые земли занимают менее 5% угодий и 8% пашни, но даже они используются не всегда эффективно. Водные ресурсы в большинстве регионов России не ограничивают развитие сельского хозяйства. Надвигающийся глобальный водный кризис формирует исключительно благоприятные условия для водообеспеченных стран, поскольку неизбежен рост спроса и цен на водоемкую продукцию. Россия обладает конкурентными преимуществами в производстве водоемкой с.-х. продукции и может стать одним из лидеров соответствующих мировых рынков. Наиболее перспективные экспортные товары – зерно и мясо. К 2020 г. возможно увеличение экспортного потенциала зерна до 150 млн т, увеличение производства скота и птицы (в живом весе) – до 15 млн т.