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Let´s talk about (virtual) water – How global economy shapes Africa´s water flows


Last week I investigated the impacts of water flows on agriculture on a local scale looking at Egypt and the Great Renaissance dam. Today I wanna take a step back by looking at water from a global perspective; exploring how global economy and its never-ending flows of goods and materials shapes food security and livelihoods all over Africa. And all of this just because of a small molecule called water. 

What is virtual about water?


Imagine you are sitting at the breakfast table: sipping a cup of coffee, maybe adding a little milk, putting a piece of ham on your toast, eating it with pleasure. Who would have thought that with every bite you’re taking, you are consuming massive amounts of water, not actual water, but invisible, virtual water? Who would have thought that with every bite, you are participating in flows of water all over the world, eventually influencing water circulation in Africa? But what exactly is virtual water?

Fig. 1: Water Footprint showing virtual water that is embedded in our food (Source)

Virtual water is the amount of water used to “produce a commodity” (Antonelli and Tamea 2015: 328). Thus, by trading goods, virtual water is simultaneously moved around the world. As about 70% of the world´s freshwater is used for agriculture (Liu and Yang 2009), huge amounts of virtual water are embedded in the food we eat on a daily basis.

 If you wanna get an interesting introduction to virtual water and its effects on world economy, have a look at this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h23IHDOKhZc 



Impacts of virtual water trade on Africa



South-Saharan Africa shows great potential for improving agricultural productivity by e.g. using groundwater sources (as I investigated in one of my pervious posts) or rainfed-irrigation. In the last decades this potential has brought foreign investment companies to the scene e.g. from China, Saudi Arabia, India, but also European investors. It has been a common practice for foreign companies to engage in Africa´s agriculture by investing into modernization and increasing productivity for years (Bräutigam 2013). For example, Chinese agricultural aid has launched several large-scale farming projects since the 60´s in Tanzania investigating in rice farming (Bräutigam 2013) in order to export its goods to achieve food security in the rapidly growing population of China. These developments vary across Africa and take place on different scales and paces, but one question is omnipresent:  Who benefits from this? 

Foreign investments often focus on large-scale farming, which is supported by most governments, as it allows their economy to benefit from modernization and employment (Carmody 2013):

We give land because we cannot produce on that land.  […] They open a big opportunity for employment and of course generation of taxes and other financial gain.
 (Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture, quoted in Carmody 2013).


Fig. 2: Coffee Plantation in Kenya (Source)


According to Konar and Caylor (2013) these investments could increase agricultural water use efficiency and may improve “management of nutrient and water inputs” (Konarand Caylor 2013: 3977), thereby making agriculture competitive on the global market. Moreover, open virtual water trade may be the key for ensuring food security in countries that are generally water scarce, such as Egypt, by reaching their water demands through import (Konar and Caylor 2013). Additionally, a new generation of inward investors, set in SSA´s urban areas and engaging in large-scale farming largely benefits from these developments, whereas small-scale farmers are pushed towards giving up their businesses and working as farm labourers (Hillhorst and Nelen 2013).

And again, it is the poorest and most vulnerable, who are the most disadvantaged by this system. Although there might be enough water in volume, it is only virtual water, when it is “used to produce agricultural commodities for export” (Carmody 2013: 124). This water does not benefit local markets and therefore fails to contribute to achieving food security especially in peripheral, rural areas, but also feeding the millions of people living in Africa´s rapidly growing urban areas. Thus, the increasing global water footprint in combination with the insufficient water infrastructure in large parts of Africa, rapid population growth and changes in livelihoods towards intensified consumerism especially in urban areas will add stress to the water scarcity problem in many African countries.

Some final thoughts


In times of globalisation Africa has become part of the complex networks of flows of goods, money, information and people that dominate world economy today. One could argue that foreign investments contribute a large percentage of the country´s GDP. But, huge amounts of water are pumped into growing crops that eventually end up on our tables in form of dairy products, meat and coffee, while large parts of Africa have severe issues with domestic water provision and achieving food security. Thus, many countries, especially in SSA remain in the periphery, rarely benefiting from its effects, whereas companies from the west and most recently countries like China or Saudi Arabia gain all the profits. This intensifies economic disparities between the global south and north and reproduces colonial patterns of dependency that were long thought to have been overcome. 

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