IISD-GWSP Conference on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, Winnipeg May 2, 2012

This conference ran for 4 days, but I was able to make one of them.

The agenda was filled with speaker names from across the globe, gathered to discuss the complex issue of meeting our needs for water, energy and food in the foreseeable future.

Today, the focus was on the integration of such issues, that is, that you cannot just consider water or food, or energy on their own. They all need each other. It takes energy to produce food, collect, distribute, clean and treat water. Food production takes energy and water.

We had a federal perspective of how the water-energy and food security is monitored in Canada and integrated across the world, and what is coming in terms of innovation in the agriculture sector and its use of enegry and water in the production of food in Canada. This was followed by a panel session with representatives from Manitoba Water Stewardship, Agriculture, Agri-Food Canada and NASA who each gave their pitch for their views on issues going forward and then fielded comments or questions from the floor. There was a suggestion that sustainable growth is not the best way to use natural resources but they should be seen for their intrinsic value. This was a controversial point, but no-one seized it. However, the idea of working at the community level and the idea of water being needed for agriculture and food production as well as for environmental health were strong themes.

The discussion session after the networking break was a bit of a struggle. The chair posed about 10 questions for those present to consider, but too fast for us to note down and really take in. People did try, but I think we were all ready for lunch!

Plenty of time for more networking over lunch, and then we had a mix of presentations. First a presentation on the bioeconomy philosophy that IISD are developing from its voice - Hank Venema. Then a historical look at the drainage of wetlands in the Assiniboine valley and how significant that was for flooding from Pascal Badiou of Ducks Unlimited. This meshed neatly with Greg McCullough's presentation of data that shows the was flood waters carry nutrients and how significant these are in the Assiniboine and Red River Valleys. David Lobb of University of Manitoba then presented some options for managing water on farm that the WSRP is developing, and Bruce Shewfelt of Agriculture Agri-Food Canada provided his observations of how farmers are using tools and innovating on water management.

Later we heard about how the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) is being managed to meet the complexd water needs in Israel from Doren Markel, which was followed with a presentation from Stuart Taylor from iDE on some of the problems and water-energy-food solutions in parts of Africa and Asia where the program is operating. Darren Swanson of IISD then provided us with some policy making approaches and governance ides.

Across the world, water management and protection, food production and energy management are dealt with by different government departments, but there was a clear message coming through that this needs to change and policy makers need to have a wider understanding and be a little more flexible, and users too have to recognise that their actions often cross these.

Gave me a lot to think about...

Selena Randall