`Water footprint' mulled

Water could be the new crisis for a world racing to provide food for its burgeoning population, and consumers are becoming more aware of water use, says Plant and Food Research's Brent Clothier.

He was speaking at last week's Massey University forum on Future Food Farming.

Dr Clothier said that as global warming kicked in, emerging economies looked to be better endowed with water than the more developed economies in Europe and North America.

It was a good news story for New Zealand, he said.

"Looking into the future, our water resources look good relative to a lot of other horticultural and agricultural regions of the world. "

This was not to say that New Zealand would not have issues, he said. "But if we're smart, and use water tactically and wisely, we will be able to sustain profitable food production in the future.

"We have calculated water used in apples. Every apple takes 10 litres of water to produce, in a traditional old splendour apple tree. Now, with modern trees and technically savvy growers, apples are on dwarf rootstock – with good canopy management, we can get down to six litres per apple."