No Water!!

I was reading the 25th February issue (yeah, I know, way out of date! But can I help it if I get issues late, because I'm an international subscriber? At least I still get them!) of New Scientist, and encountered the cover article which talked about how much water was being used in agriculture and how farmers are gradually excessively tapping into ground water because of the lack of rainfall. The amount of ground water being tapped is more than the water being replaced by rain, so much so that farmers have to tap deeper and deeper into the ground just to get water.

Then the statistics were quite appalling:
To produce 1kg of coffee, we need 20, 000 litres of water
To produce 1 quarter-pounder hamburger, we need 11, 000 litres
To produce 1 cotton t-shirt, we need 7000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of cheese, we need 5000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of rice, we need 5000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of sugar, we need 3000 litres of water
To produce 1 litre of milk, we need 2000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of wheat, we need 1000 litres of water

To think we in Singapore fret so much about not wasting water. Perhaps we should be a lot more careful about not wasting food either. Don't get me started on the deprived and starving people in Africa. It seems now that famine and mal-nutrition aren't the only things to be concerned about when we throw away a plate of rice we can't finish. There's all that water in there too. Ah, and all the politics involved just to make sure the poor farmers get a sustainable supply of water some way or another.

Hopefully what was suggested in the article - efficient tapping of rainwater by modifying drainage system - will be a feasible alternative. Otherwise it seems we have more in our hands to be concerned about than whether or not we can get that mocha ice-blended.