Research into the potential of valuing water for food security policies. The Food and Water Valuation Framework (FWVF) has been developed to combine the valuing water concept with the food system approach. This framework is applied in four case studies to assess its advantage over existing concepts. | Onderzoek naar de mogelijkheden van het waarderen van water voor voedselzekerheidsbeleid. Het Food and Water Valuation Framework (FWVF) is ontwikkeld om het waterwaarderingsconcept te combineren met de voedselsysteembenadering. Dit kader wordt toegepast in vier casestudies om het voordeel ervan ten opzichte van bestaande concepten te beoordelen.

A humongous amount of food goes to waste yearly. The use of renewable energy sources is encouraged to reduce global warming. Food waste as a source of energy and water as a food-water-energy nexus has shown to be a viable source of renewable energy. This paper proposes a food waste recycling system that uses a mechanical presser to the extraction of moisture from the food waste with its desiccate being fed to an anaerobic digester to produce biogas. Literature on the topic is reviewed and the benefits and limitations of the system are also discussed.

A humongous amount of food goes to waste yearly. The use of renewable energy sources is encouraged to reduce global warming. Food waste as a source of energy and water as a food-water-energy nexus has shown to be a viable source of renewable energy. This paper proposes a food waste recycling system that uses a mechanical presser to the extraction of moisture from the food waste with its desiccate being fed to an anaerobic digester to produce biogas. Literature on the topic is reviewed and the benefits and limitations of the system are also discussed.

Globally, water is a bottleneck to food security and, as such, a new approach for water for food is needed. Food insecurity is knocking at every nation's door, including those of the most developed. Moreover, the disruptions in food supply chains that result from continued reliance on a business-as-usual approach of traditional, non-sustainable food and agricultural systems make food insecurity even more vividly present. This article explores the current relationship between food production and water resources. It attempts to better understand how we might reduce the inter-dependencies between food and fresh water by exploring new and alternative sources of water, including improving the efficiencies of green and recycled water.

Globally, water is a bottleneck to food security and, as such, a new approach for water for food is needed. Food insecurity is knocking at every nation's door, including those of the most developed. Moreover, the disruptions in food supply chains that result from continued reliance on a business-as-usual approach of traditional, non-sustainable food and agricultural systems make food insecurity even more vividly present. This article explores the current relationship between food production and water resources. It attempts to better understand how we might reduce the inter-dependencies between food and fresh water by exploring new and alternative sources of water, including improving the efficiencies of green and recycled water. Copyright © 2022 Mohtar and Fares.

Optimal allocation of the food, energy and water (FEW) resources is of emergent concern owing to depleting supply of the natural resources. Increasing demand for the FEW resources is attributable to growing population, migration, economic development, technological advancements and climate change. The FEW nexus (FEW-N) is an intricate system that requires robust quantitative decision-making tools to investigate the links between the various system components and sustainability. This study proposes a meta-model-based FEW-N system for addressing the issue of natural resource allocation for food and energy security. It incorporated an integrated model consisting of the Techno-Economic and Input/Output models in an Optimisation framework with maximum economic benefit as its objective function. The COINOR Branch and Cut (CBC) and CPLEX solvers in the Advanced Interactive Multidimensional Modelling System (AIMMs) were used to formulate and solve the optimisation problems. To validate the developed framework, the scenario analysis was performed on three cases in South Africa. First, it was found that using FEW resources for food production in dryland open fields, undercover greenhouses, and irrigated open fields was more profitable than for production of electrical energy from bioenergy, solar/wind-based hybrid renewable energy, and hydropower production systems. Second, the revenue of the sub-sector determined the percentage use of the FEW resources and the percentage contribution of technology options to food and energy security. Third, open fields, greenhouses, and irrigated open fields contributed significantly to food security. The holistic framework developed provided enhanced understanding of the FEW-N system. Resource security has significantly improved due to the ability of various technologies in each subsector to meet the food and energy demands of the specific population. Besides providing scientific support for national decisions regarding food, energy, and water policy, the proposed framework will also contribute to sustainable development at the subnational level.

Arsenic poisoning constitutes a major threat to humans, causing various health problems. Almost everywhere across the world certain “hotspots” have been detected, putting in danger the local populations, due to the potential consumption of water or food contaminated with elevated concentrations of arsenic. According to the relevant studies, Asia shows the highest percentage of significantly contaminated sites, followed by North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Oceania. The presence of arsenic in ecosystems can originate from several natural or anthropogenic activities. Arsenic can be then gradually accumulated in different food sources, such as vegetables, rice and other crops, but also in seafood, etc., and in water sources (mainly in groundwater, but also to a lesser extent in surface water), potentially used as drinking-water supplies, provoking their contamination and therefore potential health problems to the consumers. This review reports the major areas worldwide that present elevated arsenic concentrations in food and water sources. Furthermore, it also discusses the sources of arsenic contamination at these sites, as well as selected treatment technologies, aiming to remove this pollutant mainly from the contaminated waters and thus the reduction and prevention of population towards arsenic exposure.

The United Nations Food Systems Summit aimed to chart a path toward transforming food systems toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the essentiality of water for food systems, however, the Summit has not sufficiently considered the role of water for food systems transformation. This focus is even more important due to rapidly worsening climate change and its pervasive impacts on food systems that are mediated through water. To avoid that water “breaks” food systems, key food systems actors should 1) Strengthen efforts to retain water-dependent ecosystems, their functions and services; 2) Improve agricultural water management; 3) Reduce water and food losses beyond the farmgate; 4) Coordinate water with nutrition and health interventions; 5) Increase the environmental sustainability of food systems; 6) Explicitly address social inequities; and 7) Improve data quality and monitoring for water-food system linkages. | PR | IFPRI3; ISI; DCA; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply | EPTD

The United Nations Food Systems Summit aimed to chart a path toward transforming food systems toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the essentiality of water for food systems, however, the Summit has not sufficiently considered the role of water for food systems transformation. This focus is even more important due to rapidly worsening climate change and its pervasive impacts on food systems that are mediated through water. To avoid that water “breaks” food systems, key food systems actors should 1) Strengthen efforts to retain water-dependent ecosystems, their functions and services; 2) Improve agricultural water management; 3) Reduce water and food losses beyond the farmgate; 4) Coordinate water with nutrition and health interventions; 5) Increase the environmental sustainability of food systems; 6) Explicitly address social inequities; and 7) Improve data quality and monitoring for water-food system linkages.

The project titled “The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Global, Basin and Local Case Studies of Resource Use Efficiency under Growing Natural Resource Scarcity“ (2015-2018), which was supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany, and was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems. The project set out to develop research methodologies and insights globally as well as for the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Organization (ENTRO) of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to support efforts for enhanced water, energy and food security and environmental sustainability. The toolkit describes both qualitative and quantitative methods that have been used in the research project. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list of information and tools related to the analysis of the water, energy and food (WEF) nexus. The overall focus of the tools has been on economic analysis of the linkages across water, energy and food--to complement other studies and method developments that focus on biophysical linkages across the WEF nexus. The toolkit is aimed, primarily, at researchers interested in the analysis of the water, energy and food nexus. However, the studies summarized here also provide insights for practitioners implementing Nexus projects. | Non-PR | IFPRI1; CRP5; The Water Energy Food Nexus | EPTD; DSGD | CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)