Big gulps of water thoughts to ponder

• The United Nations estimates that by 2050 the world’s population will grow by 2.3 billion people (33 percent).

• The U.N. also estimates that those new mouths to feed, plus increased food demand by the current population, means annual worldwide food production by that date will need to increase by 70 percent.

• The U.S. is the currently largest single food-exporting nation in the world ($69 billion in 2006), and is larger than No. 2 Brazil and No. 3 China combined.

• California is currently the largest food-producing state in the U.S. ($38 billion in 2008), and is larger than No. 2 Texas and No. 3 Iowa combined.

• According to the Department of Agriculture, U.S. farmland is a dwindling resource that lost another 1.5 million acres in 2008.

• According to the Family Farm Alliance, America’s ability to meet its own food needs in the future, let alone continue to send vast exports into a world that already suffers an estimated 36 million nutrition-related deaths per year, hinges upon repairing, updating and expanding the crumbling 50-year-old water infrastructure system (dams and canals) in the 17 Western states that together produce one-third of the nation’s food.

• Family Farm Alliance Executive Director Dan Keppen (pictured above) says doing so will require much more than just money and engineering. He points out, for instance, that environmental and social activists, often using the federal Clean Water Act and Native Species Act as wedges, are relentlessly diverting water away from farms and farmers.

“The U.N. says in 40 years the world will need 70 percent more food per year, but how are we going to be able to do that without water?” he asks.