THE GREAT IMPENDING WATER SHORTAGE-FOOD, THE FIRST CASUALTY!

The importance of water in this Universe cannot be over emphasized. The whole human civilization prospered over thousands of years of history because of plenty of water sources accessible to them. With modern world built on unsustainable energy and water consumption levels in pursuit of material comforts, world seems to be running out of both these critical resources. While fossil fuel, the very foundation of modern industrialized society is fast dwindling with most sources getting exhausted due to over exploitation, water is also facing a similar situation. Though this planet boasts of abundant water all around, most of it is brackish in nature unfit for consumption or use for any productive purpose. Over exploitation of ground water and loss of rain water due to flow off into the ocean and destruction of natural lakes and water bodies, both the drinking water supply as well as irrigation water needs are dwindling fast, putting the future of humanity into a crisis mode. If the current trend continues, even production of food required to meet the bare minimum needs of man will be in jeopardy. Here is a commentary on the impending disaster if adequate measures are not taken now to meet the grim situation ahead.  

Allegations abound of manufacturers in developing countries depleting or damaging local freshwater to produce nutritiously dubious products, but, even where operations do not impact a community's supplies, can multinationals really justify creating water intensive foodstuffs for foreign markets when so many in the source nation lack clean water? Crossley suggests the issue is fundamentally an issue of rights. "We should not assume," he explains, "that we in the UK somehow have more of a right to the water that goes into producing our green beans or our tomatoes than those living in the [places] where they're grown." Aware that water scarcity presents real challenges, the cohort of companies looking to find solutions is expanding. In Britain, industry body the Food and Drink Federation launched the Every Last Drop campaign to focus on the practical steps that can be taken to conserve water, including tracking usage and reducing, recycling and reusing supplies. Food manufacturers "want to be responsible and do the right thing" insists Andrew Kuyk, the federation's director of sustainability. "What we eat in this country does affect the availability of water for domestic communities in Africa, South America, Australia or various other parts of the world – there is an inter-connectedness through global supply chains." Around a quarter of food and drink manufacturers in England and Wales have now committed to reducing water usage by 20% by 2020. But if they want to fully protect themselves against future water crises, they need to think about the whole of their supply chain, says Kuyk. "In some parts of Africa the combination of temperature rises and water scarcity will mean that some traditional crops may not be viable in ten years time. So if you are a chocolate manufacturer you need to start thinking: what are the potential alternative sources?" Many observers point to technological changes to help avert water crises. From genetic engineering and innovations in purification and desalination to novel changes to irrigation, recycling, piping and storage, there is reason to believe that water scarcity is not an "insoluble" problem, says Kuyk.But as long as water is cheap, the disincentive to invest in water efficiency may be too great. "If you can turn a tap on and get water for free, why would you spend £20,000 installing a piece of machinery?"
Drastic situation requires drastic remedies and mankind has no alternative but to reduce water consumption to a bare minimum besides taking measures to conserve water as much as possible. The recycling of used water cannot be brushed away and increasingly this is going to be a viable option. Similarly processing saline water to extract pure water is also emerging as an unavoidable necessity and countries like UAE, Israel have already proved that this route is feasible and desirable. There are highly efficient water technologies developed over the years and all it needs is a will and determination to take them up in a big way. The old concept that water is available plenty and can be had free will have to yield to new philosophy that it is a precious resource for which every one has to pay a price.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

SUPPLY CHAIN TRACKING-NEW CHALLENGES

Food manufacturing and selling have never been easy at any time because of the heavy burden for food suppliers in general to be accountable to the consumer in terms of quality and safety. Earlier every one assumed that once a sample of a food conforms to the specifications laid down in statute books, they were safe vis-a-vis any responsibility arising out of any safety incidence from consuming their products. Whether it is the lax attitude on the part of the safety vigilance agencies or inherent faults in the manufacturing system, there have been increasing episodes of food poisoning requiring recall of hundreds of products from the market costing billions of dollars to the industry. It is against this background that more stringent and reliable systems are being considered for "tracing" the sources of foods/raw materials/inputs used by the manufacturers, the intention being restricting the damage caused in the event of a food poisoning episode. While it may sound simple, for many manufacturers deploying complex manufacturing methods and using a number of input materials obtained from multiple sources, it is a nightmarish situation. Emergence of logistical service providers using IT enabled software systems is timely to help the food industry to meet the new challenges. Here is a glimpse into this churning process the industry is going through to satisfy the safety agencies vis-a-vis new situation.  

"A white paper prepared last year by Irista, a supply chain software and services provider, reports, "This year alone, there have been recalls of hot dogs contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, dinner buns produced with eggs not listed as ingredients causing allergic reactions, pizzas made with milk not listed on the product's label, and most recently, another large recall of E. coli contaminated hamburger." According to numbers compiled by RedPrairie, also a supply chain software producer, the FDA issued more than 400 food product recalls between January and August of last year. And the pace of food recalls is growing. It's not that the food industry is becoming less safe: Food producers have made enormous investments in food safety. But in the aftermath of food contamination incidents in recent years, the government is paying more attention than ever to food safety. As a result, food distributors are under greater pressure than ever to keep track of where their products have been and where they are now. And distributors have to know their shipment history in greater detail than ever. Tracking where the goods are and where they've been is important not only for complying with the law, but also for protecting the company and its brands.On those occasions when something does go wrong, the ability to act quickly, to know where all the affected goods are, and to know that they have been recovered depends in large part on complete information on every inbound and outbound shipment".

While incorporating supply chain software program in well managed food companies may not pose much of a logistical problem, how effective it can be in to day's global food business system is a question that will haunt both the safety agencies as well as the industry. The most difficult problem to be encountered is getting reliable and actionable details of suppliers from third world countries from where some of the inputs are sourced. Also distributors will be in greater trouble since many food products are sourced from third country manufacturers like China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia etc where the safety vigilance infrastructure and practices are not well established. Ultimately how the global food business will be affected by the current recognition of the importance of traceability in the supply chain will have to be seen in the course of next two years after the implementation of the new policy by countries like the US.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT-CHALLENGES AHEAD

With fossil fuel prices rising rapidly these days, the energy scenario is being revisited to identify areas where energy can be saved significantly. That food processing and retailing system has come in for some attention in this regard is not very surprising. While the industry is continuously developing mechanized and automated processing plants to keep human intervention to the minimum, this is accomplished by using more energy. Similarly with free trade regime taking hold of global food business, foods travel over long distances to reach the retail markets. In many developed countries agricultural land is diverted for industry shrinking their production base continuously, necessitating more and more imports from developing countries. Thus food accounts substantially for energy consumption directly as well as indirectly. Here is a commentary on this vital issue based on data from the US that may be relevant to most of the countries in the world.

From the diesel fuel tractors that harvest our crops, to the refrigerated trucks that transport products cross-country, to the labor-saving technology found in the home such as toasters and self-cleaning ovens, the U.S. food system is about as energy inefficient as it gets. And it's only getting worse. A fall 2010 report by the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, ERS, called "Fuel for Food: Energy Use in the U.S. Food System," found that while energy consumption per capita fell by 1 percent between 2002 and 2007, food-related energy use grew nearly 8 percent, as the food industry relied on more energy-intensive technologies to produce more food for more people. Between 1997 and 2002, in fact, over 80 percent of the increase in annual U.S. energy consumption was food related. And estimates for 2007 suggest the U.S. food system accounted for nearly 16 percent of the nation's total energy budget, up from 14.4 percent in 2002, according to the report, which measured both the direct energy used to power machines and appliances (like trucks and microwave ovens) as well as the "embodied" energy used to manufacture, store and distribute food products. "This is what they call a fossil fuel party," says Kamyar Enshayan, director of the Center for Energy & Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa. "We've created a food system that relies heavily on fossil energy, and it's become so globalized that there are literally grapes from South Africa in the grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It's a long-distance shipping economy, which makes all of us vulnerable to disruptions in the supply chain and other unforeseen emergencies." That's particularly troublesome, he notes, when so much of the U.S. — particularly the Midwest — has such potential for primary production. "We have the best soils and a great climate and yet, most of what we eat is imported," says Enshayan. "You have to step back and say, 'Wait, why is a region like Iowa not feeding itself?" The environmental consequence of relying so heavily on a national and international network of suppliers is even greater, he notes. "It dulls our imagination and prevents us from paying attention to what sustains us," says Enshayan. "The loss of water and soil quality is right in front of us, but since our food doesn't come from it, why worry?" And then, of course, there's the impact on our climate.

"The production and distribution of food has long been known to be a major source of green house gas and other environmental emissions, and, for many reasons, it is seen by many environmental advocates as one of the major ways concerned consumers can reduce their carbon footprints," writes Christopher Weber, an environmental engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in a 2008 paper called "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the Unites States" that he co-authored with H. Scott Mathews. According to the report, the average household's climate impact related to food is estimated to be 8.1 t CO2/yr, or tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year, a common measure for determining how much global warming a type of greenhouse gas may cause. To put that figure into perspective, driving a car that gets 25 miles per gallon roughly 12,000 miles produces 4.4 t CO2/yr.

While energy consumption is one facet of the problem, environment degradation due to high CO2 emission from all activities connected with food production, processing and marketing, is another aspect that is worrying the planners. Since food is essential there is no way to avoid such emissions but it can always be pared down to unavoidable minimum for which industry, both production as well as processing and consumers will have to work hard to achieve. Probably local markets, farmers markets, organic food production and other efforts, though constitute a minuscule part of the current food landscape, do provide some options. Energy auditing and carbon foot print assessment for every food item consumed by human beings as well as reared animals need to be done for sensitizing the consumers and hopefully there will be natural weeding out of "guzzlers" eventually.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com